Wintercombe, page 4
part #1 of Wintercombe Series
As further conflict seemed imminent, the door on Silence’s right opened, and the heavy, threatening figure of Ruth Spratt, Dame Ursula’s maid, appeared. She sketched a rather ponderous curtsey that only just stopped short of insolence, and said in her strong Somerset voice, ‘Madam d’wish to see ee, m’lady, and the children, as soon as ee be all ready.’
There was no chance whatsoever that Dame Ursula would have missed the uproar. With a sinking heart, Silence thanked the maid, ushered her fractious brood back to the nursery, and made sure that all five, including a yawning and sulky Rachael, and Tabby, neat as ever, were fit to be paraded before their grandmother. Morning prayers, usually held at this time in the Hall, would have to wait for a little: Dame Ursula had commanded their presence, and would brook no further delay.
It was still only seven o’clock, and dark enough for a smoky tallow candle to light Dame Ursula’s chamber. She called it godly thrift, but Silence’s irreverent maids, knowing the wealth and comfort of Wintercombe, and spoilt by the sweet wax in profusion elsewhere in the house, had another and less pleasant name for it.
The old lady’s wizened face peered at them through the rancid smell and noxious smoke. At least, thought Silence, standing behind her offspring with her hands decorously folded and her hair bestowed plainly within her starched, lace-fringed cap, there was nothing at fault with their appearance. All had their hair neatly brushed, their attire was clean and tidy, and their faces wore bland and innocent expressions, schooled by long habit, and fright.
It never satisfied Dame Ursula, whose exacting standards were placed so high that no child could reach them. ‘You’re late this morning — I have been up and reading this past hour. What was the meaning of that unseemly caterwauling I heard?’
It fell to Silence to answer this, since William did not know that a question was directed at him unless by name, and Deb was too guilty to speak up. ‘It was a slight dispute, madam. All is quiet and settled now.’
‘Who were the perpetrators of that ungodly noise? You, child?’
Tabby, thus addressed, looked startled and wary. ‘No, Grandmother.’
‘Really?’ said Dame Ursula, with a sneer that reeked of disbelief. She detested poor Tabby, whose glorious curls seemed a personal affront to the harsh austerity she favoured. ‘Then it must perforce have been you, Deborah, and you, William. What have you to say for yourselves, disturbing my prayers in such a way?’
‘I am very sorry, Grandmother,’ said Deb instantly, her large brown eyes earnestly staring into Dame Ursula’s glittering blue ones, as hard and penetrating as any knife. ‘I will not do it again, I promise.’
‘And you, William? Pay attention, child, or you’ll be beaten as you deserve. You have interrupted my reading of Holy Scripture, a most ungodly and unchristian act. Your sister has apologised, as is befitting — what have you to say, eh?’
It was doubtful whether William understood more than one in three of her words: the tone, however, was quite plain, and he knew by heart the magic incantation which always seemed to placate his terrifying grandmother. In a toneless gabble, he recited the spell. ‘I-am-very-sorry-Grandmother-and-I-won’t-do-it-again.’
‘That’s better.’ Dame Ursula, having asserted her authority, leaned back a little in her chair and surveyed the suitably cowed figures of her five grandchildren and her daughter-in-law. ‘And Nathaniel — how are you to spend your day? Is Master Willis coming this morning?’
‘Yes, Grandmother — if his horse can get up the hill in the mud.’
Nat was the only one who showed no fear, who could give more than a plain answer, and paradoxically it was this that his autocratic grandmother loved best in him: he was her favourite, though she took good care never to show it. However, she softened slightly. ‘And what are you to study under his instruction?’
‘We are to continue with the works of Livy, Grandmother, and Master Willis has also spoken of his wish to further my knowledge of Mathematics today.’
Silence, listening to his words, spoken in what she feared was an ironic imitation of his father at his most pompous, was struck afresh by the change that came over all the children when in the presence of Dame Ursula. Even William and Deb put away their natural childishness, turned into wooden, frightened little puppets by the threat of her wrath and the power of her personality. She understood it only too well; she suffered in the same way herself. She waited quietly, ordering her thoughts, as Nat’s catechism continued. Then, it was Rachael’s turn. Her sewing was called into question, her knowledge of the Book of Proverbs (Dame Ursula’s favourite) found wanting, her deportment criticized until the girl’s face grew a fiery and humiliated red, and tears of rage stood in her fierce eyes. Silence, wishing that Dame Ursula would leave her stepdaughter alone, knew that poor Rachael would be unbearable for the rest of the day.
Then it was her turn. A woman grown, a mother four times over, twenty-eight years old and the keeper of the house, first at Chard and then at Wintercombe, for the nine years of her marriage, she stood meekly in front of her mother-in-law and stated her tasks for the day: teaching the younger children and Rachael in the morning, supervising the ritual autumn sweeping of the chimneys, work in the stillroom, estate business with old Tom Clevinger, the bailiff, and later, if the weather cleared, a visit of charity to the Widow Grindland, mother of one of the scullions, who had a child sick. She hated thus to itemise her duties, for no matter how detailed her intentions, nothing ever happened as she planned it, and Dame Ursula was never satisfied with her reasons for deviating from her goals, however compelling or justified they might be.
But at last she could find little more fault with the day, apart from a sour comment on last night’s supper. ‘The bread was stale, and Turber forgot to water the wine again. Give him a severe reprimand, daughter. It is hardly the first time that he has been so lax. I dread to think what the servants have been doing, under his guidance.’
‘I shall speak to him,’ Silence promised, with a twinge of irritation. There was no doubt of it, the footman and butler Henry Turber was becoming increasingly deaf and forgetful, but he was a willing soul, if too ancient for his duties, and she hated to criticize him for faults he could not help. It was another burden to lay upon her: sometimes, facing Dame Ursula’s implacable will, she wished with all her heart to be free of them, servants, mother-in-law, house, farm, bailiff, husband, even the children, and escape somewhere, anywhere, that might offer her the chance to be herself, and selfish, for the first time in her life.
But she could not; her father had beaten such idle daydreams from her head years ago. The day stretched before her with children to keep calm and occupied, servants to order and cajole and correct, the bailiff to manage, and it would never end, all the days of her life…
She bowed her head as Dame Ursula prayed sternly for strength to overcome wickedness and the temptations of the devil and the flesh, and to live the godly life of righteousness, and heard with a flash of amusement William’s infant and unpractised tongue twisting the portentous syllables. Then, with a final exhortation, they were allowed to go; and not before time, for the growling of Rachael’s healthy and hungry young belly was threatening to drown her grandmother’s withered voice.
Breakfast was taken in the dining parlour: the St. Barbes did not eat in the Hall unless on special occasions such as Harvest Home, or when important guests must be entertained. Another argument broke out over the last slice of white bread, which Tabby had and Rachael wanted: Silence, her calm already frayed, made them both have brown, and shared the disputed slice between William and Deb, who was being unwontedly and annoyingly virtuous. Outside, the rain streamed down the leaded panes, and the sky was too dark to promise better weather. With a premonition of continuing disaster, she contemplated the rest of the day in a mood of some gloom.
Master Willis arrived late, mired from head to foot: his clumsy old mare had slipped coming up from the village, just as Nat had foretold. He was offered a clean suit of clothes belonging to Sir George, which hung on his insubstantial frame in folds of honest russet, and as Silence plied him with mulled and spiced ale, complained so pointedly about the appalling conditions that she gave in and suggested that he need not come to Wintercombe again until the weather improved. Master Willis brightened miraculously, swallowed his ale with ungodly enthusiasm, and bore Nat off to the study to wrestle with the dubious delights of Livy. William was led away by Hester Perry, the younger nursemaid, to be tended for the rest of the morning in the nursery: despite Dame Ursula’s opinions on the necessity of early education for the young, Silence knew it was of small use yet trying to instil any learning in the mind of a lively little boy of two and a half.
She must, instead, try to achieve some impression on the intellects of Deb, Tabby and Rachael. The lessons took place, as always, in her own chamber. It occupied the whole of the eastern side of the upper part of Wintercombe, separated from the rest of the house by the two storeys of the Great Hall, and reached by its own stairs. It had been Sir Samuel’s chamber, and he had gallantly relinquished it to his daughter-in-law on her arrival two years earlier. Silence loved the room, as she loved all of Wintercombe, but with a special intensity because, amid the rambling house with its servants and children and business and lack of privacy, this part of it was hers. True, her personal maid, Mally Merrifield, had a tiny closet off, in which to sleep, but she could be sent elsewhere if necessary, so that Silence might have the chance to be absolutely alone for a space.
There was small hope of that today. She settled Deb with her hornbook, Tabitha to read from a primer, Rachael to practise her handwriting, which was execrable, and then, not without some trepidation, left them under the capable eye of Doraty Locke, who had been their nurse since Tabby’s birth, and with her maid Mally went to tackle the various problems that always beset the household.
Mally was a local girl, daughter of a Norton family that had recently been struck by disaster, when both her father and her grandfather had died within two years of each other, leaving their widows and children to weave cloth and work the family holdings as best they might. Silence, on her arrival at Wintercombe, had lacked a personal maid, her own having elected to stay with her sweetheart in Chard, and Sir Samuel, who knew everyone in Norton from Master Flower at the Manor Farm down to the smallest and humblest member of the fertile and poverty-stricken Grindlands, had suggested Mally Merrifield, newly fatherless.
It had been an inspired choice. Mally at first sight was an oddity, a girl of totally insignificant height with a beaky nose, sharp blue eyes, a multitude of freckles and ginger hair, the mark of a Merrifield. But the short horn marked a shrewd cow indeed: Mally was resourceful and quick-witted, honest and fiercely loyal to Silence, who found in her a truer friend by far than the meek, submissive girl she had left behind in Chard.
‘Chimneys,’ said Mally, as they descended the narrow winding stair from her lady’s chamber. ‘Don’t ee disremember the chimneys, m’lady.’
Silence produced a sound half way between a sigh and a groan. ‘I have not forgotten them, Mally, much as I would like to. Is Walker here yet?’
‘Aye, m’lady, and ready to ’gin on the Hall fire. Indeed,’ said Mally, as they walked into the high room, to be greeted with chatter, bustle and the sharp smell of soot, ‘it d’seem as if he have already.’
The few pieces of furniture in the Great Hall had been covered with old cloths, the rush mats rolled back, the debris from last night’s fire cleared away by the maids, and Walker, one of the farm workers, who was called in every year for the task of sweeping all the ten stacks that Wintercombe could boast, had his head up the chimney and his ancient and filthy clothes enveloped in a cloud of soot as he investigated some problem. The two others present, Eliza the chief maid and Leah, Walker’s daughter, curtseyed to their mistress. Eliza, who was of Puritan persuasion and pessimistic outlook, said gloomily, ‘The chimney be blocked up, m’lady, and Walker can’t shift it no matter how he do try.’
‘Perhaps it’s a bird’s nest,’ Silence suggested, as Walker, his pockmarked face entirely disguised by soot, emerged coughing from the hearth and, obviously, remembered just in time not to brush the mess from his clothes all over the flagstoned floor. ‘I can’t do norn with this here tun,’ he complained. ‘’Twasn’t blocked last year, m’lady.’
‘Do ee poke thy rod up again, Father,’ Leah Walker said, with a smirk. ‘And if it don’t vay, we all d’know who to blame, don’t we?’
Eliza glanced at Leah with prim dislike. Walker’s eldest daughter was a bold-looking girl, always neat and clean and tidy, with a sly manner and a trick of investing the mildest comment with salacious overtones merely by a wink, a lift of an eyebrow, a snigger in her voice. Her father, however, was evidently inured to it; with a resigned grunt, he poked his head once more up the chimney and then gave the rods a massive and despairing shove. There was an indistinct rustling sound and then, amid the coughs and curses of the unfortunate Walker, the entire sooty lining of the great chimney arrived with a rush in the hearth and swept out to engulf everyone in a black, evil-smelling cloud.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Silence mildly, above Walker’s most ungodly imprecations. Mally, Eliza and Leah, coughing and spluttering, dusted themselves off with varying degrees of success. Eliza’s long, rather mannish face was not improved by a random distribution of sooty smuts across her prominent nose: Silence, after one startled glance, did not dare look at her again, nor risk catching Mally’s eye. Leah, with callous vigour, applied her energy to hammering her father on the back as he choked and wheezed and wiped his streaming eyes: the water from them left long pink streaks barring his blackened face. ‘You girt gawk, you!’ she said, with a complete absence of filial respect.
‘What a lot of slummocks we must look,’ Mally commented, with a grin. ‘Well, best get yourself a-going and clear this here mess, eh, Eliza?’
Eliza, still attempting to beat the soot from her starched collar and formerly immaculate attire, cast her the gloomily satisfied look of a Cassandra proved right. ‘I told en it’d come out all of a skelter,’ she said reproachfully. ‘My collar be all dirten, m’lady, and looksee at my apron, ’tis quite ruined!’
‘No, Eliza,’ said Mally instantly, very solemn. ‘I don’t reckon as how that’ll ever be clean again.’
‘Be you betwitting I?’ Eliza demanded with justifiable suspicion, quite forgetting her efforts to speak properly. She was notorious for having no sense of humour whatsoever, and teasing always annoyed her intensely. Silence, judging that it was time to intervene, said hastily, ‘I’m sure it will clean up beautifully, Eliza — you may use some of my fine lemon soap next washday, if you like.’
As the maid uttered her somewhat grudging thanks, her mistress glanced round at the pall of thick soot that lay over every surface in the Hall, and thought of the hours of cleaning work that now must be done. And this was only the first chimney to be swept, though by far the largest. It was cold in the Hall today without a fire; next year, Silence thought, I shall abandon tradition and have Walker do them two weeks earlier, at the least. And then it will probably turn out warm, a Luke’s summer.
Walker, poking at the sticks in the hearth, looked so comical, his face striped in pink and black, that she wanted to laugh. She restrained herself, and gave orders that he sweep the chimney in the dining parlour next, so that at least they might have their dinner in warmth. Then, having watched Eliza and Leah begin the laborious task of cleaning up the soot, she made her way to the next domestic crisis.
The rain had revealed a slipped tile over one of the servants’ chambers in the north wing: water had actually been dripping on to Eliza’s bed, an inconvenience which she had lost no time in reporting to her mistress as soon as possible that morning. Silence noted the damp patch on the plaster ceiling and ran her mind rather wearily over the various farm workers who might be prevailed upon, for an extra jug of cider and a shilling or so, to climb a precarious ladder in the rain and replace the tile. She immediately dismissed Walker from her list: he would probably fall off and break his neck, and she doubted that the Fleur-de-Lys could afford to lose such a regular customer, but the job must be done, if only to placate Eliza. Before Silence’s arrival at Wintercombe, she had been housekeeper, young for the role, but groomed by Dame Ursula: now the foreign interloper from London wore the keys of the house at her waist, and Eliza, after two years, could neither forgive nor forget her demotion.
‘Someone be calling ee, m’lady,’ Mally said suddenly. ‘And it d’sound despeared urgent to I.’
Footsteps thundered along the passageway that ran along part of the north wing past this, Eliza’s chamber, and a high desperate voice shouted breathlessly. Silence and Mally glanced at each other, exchanging a faint smile: then the small figure of one of the kitchen scullions erupted through the doorway, all but crashing into them. It was Ned, Mally’s thirteen-year-old half-brother, a boy as undersized and lightboned and red-haired as his sister, with bright blue eyes, abundant freckles and a boundless intellect and good sense. He said gasping, abandoning all courtesies in his haste, ‘Do ee come quick, Darby and Sheppard, they be a-murthering each other!’
‘Murdering?’ Silence said. Mally was already through the door. Ned took a deep breath and grasped her arm in desperation. ‘Oh, yes, m’lady, Rob Sheppard, he telled Master Darby as how his sauce were too salty and Darby was despeard miffed and fetched him a girt whop with a mallet and now they be a-walloping each other, please come, m’lady, afore they d’slaughter each other!’
Her dignity gone, Silence ran with the two Merrifields along the north corridor, past the nursery rooms and down the narrow stairs that lay, unfortunately, just outside Dame Ursula’s chamber. There would be interrogations later, but at this moment of crisis Silence could spare no thought for her mother-in-law’s malevolent prying and interfering. Panting for breath, she flung herself down the steep stone steps, her skirts hitched up almost to her knees in her haste, and burst into the kitchen just ahead of Ned and Mally.
