Mischief Acts, page 13
How she will go, she is not quite sure. But it is not long before the front door creaks, and standing before Ann is a windswept man who wears a lumpen tricorne hat. She stares as Erlekin makes for the bar and thwacks the bell for service. She hears him ask for porridge, cream and brandy, and listens as he slurps and coughs, not turning once to look at her. When Mr Milton offers him more breakfast, he shakes his head. ‘Be on my way now,’ he says. ‘Long road.’
Ann clears her throat. ‘Sir, what brings you here? Are you not very far from home?’ She cannot hide the smile that swells her voice.
Erlekin turns and smirks at her, taking in the rose gown, her muddied feet. ‘Why, Ann Catley. I thought I’d find you up at Seaton Hall, playing the lady.’
She shakes her head. ‘That’s no place for you.’
‘And you neither, by the look of it.’
Mr Milton stares, behind the bar.
Erlekin draws Ann away to huddle by the fire. ‘You’ll come back with me. To the Great North Wood.’
Ann blinks. Her face is burning. She could not wish for better fortune to arrive and save her from these straits. ‘But how?’ she asks, as he leads her past the innkeeper, and slaps a coin down on the tray. She would like to give her thanks to Mr Milton, for the fire and the brose, but he is glaring as they push the door and stand outside, buffeted by salty winds. A coach stands by the King’s Arms, its livery familiar.
‘Borrowed this,’ says Erlekin, as casually as if he meant a handkerchief, and slips behind the inn towards the stables. While he hitches on a borrowed horse, Ann dawdles, gazing at the wondrous spitting sea. It’s wider than the moors she passed with William, wider than her own dear wood, its rushing like the wind through frantic leaves.
Erlekin claps his hands at her. ‘Get on up. You’ll sit up front with me.’
Ann obeys.
The road takes them up the hill. To Ann’s alarm they soon pass the gates to Seaton Hall. She grips the seat, to keep from bumping quite so much, and tries not to think of William, waking to find her gone and in disgrace. But her heart is sore with all she’s lost. The thought of home is no relief. Her father will be furious.
The coach drives faster, rattling away from Seaton Hall, Sir Francis and the dream of singing Euphrosyne at Drury Lane.
‘Fear you’ll never sing for lord and ladies?’
She watches Erlekin, his gritted jaw, his expert hand that flicks the whip. ‘I’d learned to sing the airs from Comus. I’d got it better than Isabella ever had it.’
On they ride, beneath a heavy sky. After half an hour or more, the coach takes a wild and sudden turn on to a lane, overhung with chestnut trees, and halts there beneath the garish blossoms.
‘Come live with me, in the wood,’ says Erlekin.
Ann feels a flutter in her stomach. She’s never heeded forest gossip, tales of missing girls, of fallen branches, broken limbs, woodcutters laid low. Always she laughed and said no one man could be blamed for all the mischief in a wood. But now she quails.
‘I’ll teach you all the old songs that you’ve forgot. You’ll learn a thing or two.’ He reaches up and Ann flinches, but his hand lands on his misshapen hat and presses here and there. ‘Too tight,’ he mutters. When briefly he lifts the brim, Ann thinks she sees the shape of horns, made by his sticking hair. ‘Old Berman wouldn’t mind. The gypsies would make room for one who sings so well.’
Ann stares into her lap. ‘We lose time on the road,’ she says.
Erlekin looks at her, intent. ‘I’ll take you home. Where you belong.’ The coach begins to rumble on. ‘And while we make our way, let’s have a song, that you might learn it.’
So, as they pass beneath the chestnut trees, Ann listens.
‘The Erl-king rideth out ere dawn,
Breaketh day, falleth rime,
Bright day him came on.
The Erl-king cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
‘Beneath the alder halteth he,
Breaketh day, falleth rime,
His bonny daughter there to see.
The Erl-king cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.’
His voice rings with green and brown, with sunlit leaves and tangled ground. Ann sees her cherished alder tree, her foundling birthplace. She sees herself, a swaddled babe, laid down among the roots, and her father bending over her, to doff his tricorne hat.
She takes a breath, picks up the melody.
‘The Erl-king cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.’
GREEN GROW’TH THE HOLLY
Green grow’th the holly,
So doth the ivy;
Though winter blasts blow ne’er so high,
Green grow’th the holly.
Gay are the flowers,
Hedgerows and ploughlands;
The days grow longer in the sun,
Soft fall the showers.
Full gold the harvest,
Grain for thy labour;
With God must work for daily bread,
Else, man, thou starvest.
Fast fall the shed leaves,
Russet and yellow;
But resting-buds are snug and safe
Where swung the dead leaves.
Green grow’th the holly,
So doth the ivy;
The God of life can never die,
Hope! saith the holly.
Henry VIII, King of England
7
DENDROLOGIA
1797
Charm: I know songs unknown to any man or woman. This song will bring you help, in sorrow or in strife.
JANUARY
Fruits in prime, and yet lasting:
Apples: Kentish Pepin, Russet Pepin, Golden Pepin, French Pepin, Kirton Pepin, Holland Pepin, John-Apple, Winter Queening, Marigold, Harvey Apple, Pome-water, Pome-roy, Golden Doucet, Apis, Reineting, Lones Pear-main, Winter Pear-main, &c.
Pears: Winter Musk (bakes well), Winter Norwich (excellently baked), Winter Bergamot, Winter Bon-chrestien, both Mural: Vergoules, the great Surrein, &c.
John Evelyn, Kalendarium Hortense (1706)
The wood is at its dankest, but still Samuel Matthews sits out, on a stump beside his cave. It is Saturday, and the weekend brings more visitors than usual. He has stolen the necessary bottles of beer, and bedded them in yew fronds lest they freeze.
Sure enough, here comes his friend and fellow gardener, Hodd, who pulls from his pocket a Norwich pear, then another, and another, handing each to Matthews. Hodd is soon shivering as they sit together, swigging their beer, watching the whitish smudge that is the sun beyond the bare branches.
‘Master at Shelverdine told me,’ says Hodd. ‘It’s coming. Ink on the Enclosure Act barely dry, he said, and commissioners carving up the forest. Selling this, leasing that, it’ll be.’
Matthews is silent. He scratches at the scars that part his wavy hair, one above each temple.
‘Time you got yourself a lodgement.’ Hodd’s teeth are chattering, and he stands to stomp his feet. ‘How d’you bear it?’
The tree nearest Matthews’s cave, opposite the opening, is a hornbeam. It has an elegant twist to its trunk, and the air of a dancer about to bend, one arm rising in a century-long flourish. Inside the cave, strung carefully where the air will always reach, are posies of hornbeam catkins tied up with string.
‘I don’t know,’ says Matthews. It is his standard answer. ‘Will you have supper with me? Might be others come along.’
Hodd wants a fire, and to roast the pears, if he’s to stay, so they get one set and Hodd stands over it, waiting for heat. ‘Got no family could take you in?’ he asks.
‘Here’s a couple now,’ says Matthews.
A few minutes later, a man and a woman appear on the path, and call greeting. They are delighted to have found the cave and its hermit.
‘A friend told us,’ they say, as all shake hands. ‘We’ve wanted to meet you for so long. We came all the way from Deptford.’ They smile and smile as Matthews pulls up logs for them to sit on, and dives into the cave for more bottles of beer.
As they wait for the pears to roast, Hodd tells the news again. ‘Ink on the Enclosure Act barely dry,’ he says, shaking his head.
‘What will you do?’ the man and woman ask Matthews.
As a parting gift, the woman hands him a neckerchief. It is obviously the man’s, pulled crumpled from his pocket.
FEBRUARY
Set all sorts of Kernels and Stony Seeds, which Field-mice will certainly ruin before they sprout, unless prevented: Also sow Beans, Peas, Rounsevals, Corn-sallet, Marigold, Anny-seeds, Radish, Parseneps, Carrots, Onions, Garlick, &c. and plant Potatoes in your worst ground.
Rub Moss off your Trees after a soaking Rain, and scrape, and cleanse them of Cankers, &c. draining away the wet (if need require) from the too much moistned Roots, and earth up those Roots of your Fruit-trees, if any were uncovered. Continue to dig, and manure, if Weather permit. Cut off the Webs of Caterpillars, &c. from the tops of Twigs and Trees to burn. Gather Worms in the Evenings after Rain.
Samuel Matthews does not have to live off the wood’s meagre winter offerings. Some have conjectured that he stews earthworms for his supper, but there is mockery in their meaning, not pity. When tourists visit him in the wood, it is most often bread and boiled mutton he serves them. Rustic enough to amuse; safe enough to eat.
The gentlemen of Sydenham and Norwood who employ him in their gardens do not pry. It is understood that Matthews lives alone in the wood and, since he is nimble and strong at the age of seventy-one, it must suit him. It is understood by some that he has always lived there; by others that before the wood was an asylum; by yet others that before the asylum, there was a wife, and children, hearth and home. The two scars that show through his hair might explain his peculiar preference for the company of trees; a treatment gone awry, or violence done, the horrors of the asylum marked upon him.
At Shelverdine, where Hodd tends to the small orchard and vegetable plot, the kitchen girls tease him. ‘Off to see the prophet?’ they call, when they catch him pocketing a carrot or a handful of beans. The kitchen girls have heard that Matthews the Hairyman, as they call him, can tell the future. He has all night to look at the stars and trace how they align, how they circle one another, collide and kiss goodbye. The sky is full of lovers, fortunes, life and death, and the Hairyman sees it all.
At Wells House, where Matthews works most often on Mrs Elverbrook’s geometric borders, he is considered an enigma. For this man, who speaks so frequently to himself but rarely to others, has coaxed into glorious abundance Mrs Elverbrook’s Rosa mundi, and his flourishing transplants of mignonette have filled the garden with such a scent as she has never known. The disparity between wiry, taciturn man and zealous blooms bewilders Mrs Elverbrook. Her brother, who is eccentric and frequents the local public houses, tells her that Old Matthews has permission for his hermitage from the Dulwich estate, and that he is simply an original. Mrs Elderbrook, entranced by those green fingers, suspects elfin blood. She imagines that each cicatrix upon his head once rooted a horn, sap-tinted and leafy.
MARCH
Flowers in prime, and yet lasting:
Anemonies, Spring Cyclamen, Winter Aconite, Crocus, Bellis, white and black Hellebore, single and double Hepatica, Leucoion, Chamae-iris of all colours, Dens Caninus, Violets, Fritillaria, Chelidonium small with double flowers, Hermodactyls, Tuberous Iris, Hyacinth Zeboin, Brumal, Oriental, &c. Junquills, great Chalic’d, Dutch Mezereon, Persian Iris, Auricula’s, Narcissus with large tufts, common, double and single Primroses, Praecoce Tulips, Spanish Trumpets or Junquils, Violets, yellow Dutch Violets, Ornithogalum max. alb, Crown Imperial, Grape Flowers, Almonds and Peach Blossoms, Rubus Odoratus, Arbor Jude, &c.
Enclosures. Matthews considers himself, and is considered, the kind man of the wood. He offers pennies, beer, boiled mutton, words, to whoever might need them. The beneficiaries of his kindness linger. They pass the time in the presence of trees. Perhaps they notice their own enjoyment in this taste of a wild life, or perhaps he becomes an anecdote, a joke. In any case, he has brought them here. He has not frightened them away.
At the deepest part of his dugout is a ledge, cut last year, and laid out on it are acorns, beech mast, cob nuts, sweet chestnuts, horse chestnuts, and dried holly berries. Tied up in a square of muslin, hanging from a stick to keep it off the ground, are crumbled birch and alder catkins.
Enclosures. A word that straitens the mouth that speaks it, pressing the cheeks in tight to the teeth. The edges of Matthews’s tongue ache after repeating it. He gets up from his stump by the cave and begins to walk, not heeding the path but in a straight line, west.
As he walks, the afternoon sun in his eyes, he names the spring flowers as he sees them. The timid yellow stars of celandine, a name that kisses the tongue. Soon after, a haze of violets, a name that leaves the patter of a raindrop on the mouth. Thimbleweed, the wood’s own anemone, makes of its name a smile. On he wanders, towards a clearing crowded with wild daffodils. Crouching amongst them, he feels the breeze of their name across his lower lip.
There are many hundreds, perhaps thousands of seeds stowed in Matthews’s cave. Enclosures of their own kind. Ones that might break out and run riot.
APRIL
Yet if the Weather prove benign, you may adventure about the middle of this Month, giving a Refreshment of Water not too cold: about four Gallons of heated Water, to twenty, will render it Blood-warm, which is the fittest Temper upon all Occasions throughout the Year: above all things, beware both of cold Spring, Pump, or stagnant shaded Waters; that of the River is best, but of Rain incomparable. In heat of Summer, let the Water stand in the Sun till it grow tepid: Cold Applications, and all extreams, are pernicious.
Mrs Elderbrook takes up her position in the window seat. ‘Aeration of the lawn,’ Matthews said. There is no mention of this in the Kalendarium Hortense, a pristine copy of which she presses between her palms. But Matthews said that times have changed; it is a hundred years since that almanac was first printed.
Outside, on the lawn furthest from the house but within sight, Matthews is poking a cane into her beautiful grass and twisting. She winces, but holds fast. He bends, takes his hand from his pocket and pokes a finger into the hole. It is a blustery day of sudden showers. She supposes that his hands, left exposed, would get very cold. Matthews takes three steps and drives down the cane again.
His progress has not been methodical. Mrs Elderbrook cannot see the holes in the lawn from her window seat, but she knows that they are scattered unevenly, as irregular as blown petals.
She reads the almanac entry for April, and discovers that her dear plants are as averse to chill water as she is herself. She might be useful, then, and ask the cook to heat a few gallons. From the landing window she sees that Matthews is opening up a small cloth bundle and sifting through its contents.
Her garden has never been so splendid. Whatever his secrets, he must be allowed to keep them. Elfin blood, if green, is also vengeful.
MAY
Fruits in prime, and yet lasting:
Apples: Pepins, Deux-ans or John Apples, West-berry Apples, Russetting, Gilly-flower Apples, the Maligar, &c. Codling.
Pears: Great Kairville, Winter Bon-chrestien, Black Pear of Worcester, Surrein, Double Blossom Pear, &c.
Cherries, &c: The May-Cherry, Strawberries, &c.
Wells House is not the only garden Matthews tends to in the environs of the Great North Wood. Today he joins Hodd at Shelverdine, where they are to bring out the master’s orange trees and transplant them. The orange trees lead cossetted lives, kept warm all winter in a grand conservatory.
Hodd takes up this subject as they begin loosening the roots of the first tree from the sides of its pot.
‘They do better than you, eh?’ he says. ‘Found a lodgement yet?’
‘Enclosures,’ says Matthews.
‘You heard the latest, then?’ Hodd grasps the trunk of the orange tree and tests for weight. ‘We’ll want a pulley on this one.’
Matthews places his hands below Hodd’s on the trunk and lifts. The tree rises a few inches. ‘We’ll do it,’ he says. Hodd’s eyes are bulging with the effort.
When they have settled the tree into its new, larger pot, Hodd squats, panting. ‘You heard? There’s to be new houses, up your way. Master’s seen the plans. Great big mansions, he said.’
Matthews cracks his knuckles.
Hodd goes on. ‘Wood round there’s worth nothing, now, he said. Left to rack and ruin.’
A memory flits through Matthews’s mind, gone before he can grasp it, of violence done to the wood. Branches torn, saplings trampled. Stars fighting in the sky. It does not seem to belong to him, caretaker of his patch of forest. It’s true that the coppices have been neglected, and the oaks are few and far between. Blame the charcoal burners and the shipbuilders for that.
‘What is a wood worth?’ he asks, as they begin packing manure around the orange tree.
‘What is a wood for, if it’s of no use?’ says Hodd.
JUNE
Look now to your Aviary; for now the Birds grow sick of their Feathers; therefore assist them with Emulsions of the cooler Seeds bruised in their Water, as Melons, Cucumbers, &c. Also give them Succory, Beets, Groundsel, Chick-weed, fresh Gravel, and Earth, &c.
What is a wood for?
The orderly imitation of nature that is the style in the great gardens of Sydenham and Norwood provides one answer to that question. Nature there is an extension of the home. It is comfortable, sweetly scented, clean and tidy even in its profusion. The owners of the gardens where Matthews earns his crust do not stroll the woodland ways in the evening, as they stroll their box paths and espalier avenues.
June is humid. Matthews criss-crosses the clammy wood, a trowel pilfered from Wells House tucked into his belt. The moisture and warmth together have made the trees almost frantic in their foliage. Leaves bunch and frill, in shouting green. There are many seedlings, and, where the grown trees have not stretched to fill the sky, saplings. Here, Matthews digs.
