A Carriage for the Midwife (10 page)

‘Disgrace is a strong word, Father, considering how some of the Fellows carried on,’ replied Osmond lightly. ‘If you had seen the old chaplain, too drunk to take Divine Service, and the liberties taken by some of the tutors, you might suspect I’d been made a scapegoat for others more deserving of blame.’

Mr Calthorpe checked the rebuke on his lips as Polly Lucket approached them, her pretty face aglow and her dark hair escaping from under her frilled cap. She knew that she must not speak to the gentlemen unless they first spoke to her, but she dropped a curtsy.

‘Have you a message for me, maid?’ asked Calthorpe briskly.

‘Good day to ’ee, sir – and sir. Oi be takin’ a letter to Squire Hansford’s, sir.’

‘Indeed? Then be on your way, and do not loiter.’

Calthorpe dismissed her with a curt nod, but saw the smiles that passed between her and his son, and the way Osmond’s hand darted out to pat her little bottom. Her cap askew, she skipped down the track, checking that Miss Caroline’s letter to Miss Rosa was still safely tucked into her bodice. Her heart beat faster at the way Mr Osmond’s bold blue eyes had looked upon her. Only that morning she had carried his newly pressed linen up from the laundry, though she had not got as far as his bedchamber because that queer-looking Mrs Ferris had taken it from her. Polly giggled to herself. He wouldn’t get many smiles from that old black crow!

Mr Calthorpe noted his son’s appraising look at the maid’s retreating figure, and faced the fact that Osmond presented a problem. Something would have to be done without delay to instil some sense of responsibility into him.

But
what
? He was no longer a boy, but a strongly built man of almost twenty-two. He could not be thrashed and sent to his room on bread and water, nor could he be dispatched to the rectory for a homily from Dr Gravett. How in God’s name was a father to discipline a self-willed son who had always been allowed to have his own way?

There was a possible answer, Calthorpe knew.

In Belhampton these days a number of military men were billeted on households and inns. They paraded round the town in their red coats and tall peak-brimmed hats, many of them new officers hastily trained to join Generals Carleton and Howe in a new, incisive drive against that upstart Washington.

Calthorpe knew that Gertrude would become hysterical at the very thought of Osmond in the army, perhaps leading a company of men against the colonial rebels on their own soil, so unimaginably far away. He could already hear her protests, but he would have to point out that it could be the making of their son, who might return as a hero with a completely changed attitude to life.

Or he might . . .

Calthorpe set his mouth in a determinedly straight line. He needed to be proud of his son, the heir to Bever House.

Edward returned from Oxford at the beginning of June, to be warmly embraced by his father. Two years of college life had brought about changes: his face was thinner, with a sharper look in his dark blue eyes that warned off triflers and mockers. He was not inclined to speak of his experiences in any detail, nor would he be sounded on his brother’s escapades.

‘If he is to be an army officer, Father, his college career will be quite forgotten in the dangers he must face.’

Mr Calthorpe could only nod in sombre agreement, and their talk turned to village matters.

‘Those applying for parish relief are to attend Divine Service at Great St Giles on Sunday next,’ said Calthorpe, turning down his mouth. ‘No doubt Dr Gravett will pillory them in his sermon, and the church will be packed full for the entertainment.’

Edward frowned, having never forgotten his encounter with the family from the Ash-Pits, and he wondered if they – if
she
would be among those arraigned before the congregation.

Oxford had taught him a great deal, and not only about the classics. He had been quickly disillusioned about some aspects of undergraduate life, notably the sheer number of bottles consumed by the young bloods, and the resulting disorder. He had become known as Neddy Pokerface, the subject of many bawdy suggestions, loudly expressed. When one night he was set upon by a gang of drunken students who tried to strip off his clothes and force him into bed with a naked woman from the town, he had fought back with unexpected ferocity, landing punches in faces and kicks in groins that had given his assailants a new respect for Pokerface.

Nevertheless, the incident had sharpened Edward’s awareness of his young body’s needs and the ideal of womanhood that he secretly cherished. A persistent memory of two large grey eyes in a sweet, heart-shaped face had remained with him over the years, and he believed that only in Beversley would he find the girl of his dreams.

SUSAN WAS IN
an agony of indecision.

The Bennetts had left for Great St Giles, accompanied by all the servants except herself and Bet, who had been told to stay behind and turn the roasting-spit to make sure that the joint was evenly cooked. Susan knew this to be Mrs Bennett’s way of sparing her the sight of the applicants for parish relief, with Mad Doll as the main attraction, and she was grateful because she had been dreading this day.

But she was worried about Polly, who might be shamed and ridiculed because of her family. Their mother had become a byword in Beversley, and that was another thing: ought Susan to feel some concern, some pity even, towards the unhappy woman who had borne her? While she shrank from even a distant glimpse of Bartlemy, she could not dismiss her mother and brothers so completely. In short, she needed to know the outcome of today’s business, and to be on hand if her sister needed her.

In twenty minutes Matins was due to begin. Susan made up her mind.

‘Bide here an’ watch the meat, Bet, while I go up to church,’ she said, pulling off her apron and taking her bonnet down from its peg in the passage.

‘But missus said we was to—’

‘I know, but I ha’ to be there,’ muttered Susan, tying her bonnet strings. ‘I’ll slip in at the back where I won’t be seen, an’ get out afore it ends. I got to be there, Bet.’

‘Missus be sure to see ye!’ warned the maid, aghast at such disobedience, but Susan was already hurrying down the track.

From Bennett’s Lane she took the path beside the paddock field to the bridge; crossing it she turned up towards the churchyard and a small door that opened into the south transept. She entered with bowed head, her face hidden by the calico bonnet, and sat down in a pew at the very back.

At once her whole body tensed at the sight of her parents and brothers seated behind the ancient stone font. Further forward were the Bennetts, and further still were the raised stalls at right angles to the carved rood-screen that separated nave from chancel; here the Calthorpe and Hansford families sat facing each other.

Susan lowered her head and silently mouthed the Lord’s Prayer.

Widow Gibson had deserted Little St Giles this morning. With Mad Doll Lucket in the congregation anything could happen, and you never knew, a body might be needed if there was any trouble. As well as the Luckets lined up in the dock of the undeserving poor, the handywoman’s sharp eyes took in Susan kneeling in her back pew, and she clicked her tongue against her remaining teeth. What was Sarah Bennett thinking of? Anybody with a heart would have locked that poor girl up until Divine Service was over. She looked towards the north transept and picked out the younger sister trying to hide herself among the Bever House retinue, a pretty little thing but without Sukey’s sense. And Lord save us, there was to be music, as if the service wouldn’t be long enough! Two fiddles and the shepherd’s flute, along with three braying men and two warbling ploughboys to lead the singing: any minute now the steeple clock would strike eleven, and they’d all blare forth.

Squire Hansford favourably compared his absent sailor son with the Calthorpe heir, whose handsome face had a bloated look this morning. Rosa’s smiles clearly made less impression on Osmond than the row of coy maidservants seated on their bench like birds on a perch, and the squire privately hoped that his daughter’s dreams would come to nothing.

Gertrude Calthorpe’s eyes rested fondly on her elder son. Let the silly Hansford girl make sheep’s eyes at him if she liked! Both families expected Henry and Selina to make an eventual match, for they showed every sign of being madly in love, but Osmond was destined for something better.

She turned to observe the strangers from Lower Beversley.

‘Just look at that odd woman,’ she whispered to her husband. ‘And that boy’s villainous squint.
What
a row of wretches!’

Mr Calthorpe did not answer at once. He had suddenly made a connection in his mind.

‘Wasn’t there a clever older girl in that family, that Sophia sent to Mrs Bryers’ school?’ he asked.

Gertrude shrugged in irritation at the mention of the girl from the Ash-Pits who had so outshone her own daughters at reading and writing.

‘Possibly so, Osmond. In fact, I have another daughter of theirs as maidservant – see, over there? Now do not scold me, for I took pity on her.’

Calthorpe identified the curly-haired maid as the one who had taken his son’s fancy, and nodded his approval.

‘That was well done, my love, an act of Christian charity.’

She smiled coolly. ‘Thank you, Osmond. One does not always trumpet one’s charitable deeds to the world, as some do.’

Polly’s pink cheeks and fluttering eyelashes assured Osmond of his disturbing effect on her. Little temptress! He looked forward to a leisurely pursuit of Polly, culminating in capture and ultimate possession. He’d show her! The very thought of her softness aroused his hardness. Life in Beversley need not be such a bore after all.

Edward tried not to look at the Luckets, having made certain that Susan was not with them, yet his head turned again towards that poor woman whose dull eyes stared unseeingly into space while her restless hands clawed at a black leather-bound prayer book she had picked up, though she could not read.

Edward suddenly tensed, and his heart leaped. Who was that slight figure sitting in shadow at the back of the church, her head bowed and her face hidden by her bonnet? She was dressed in the plain calico gown of a maidservant, and she was – was she . . .?

He willed her to look up and meet his eyes.

And she did. Yes, she was Susan, little Susan. The large grey eyes met his for a brief moment and then looked down again.

Edward experienced a tremor, an increase in his heartbeat. He saw again a cheerful, ragged little girl defending Goody Firkin; a serious-faced child with a thirst for knowledge, almost trampled underfoot by his horse; a charity child outstripping her betters at school; a girl with a shadow in her eyes, glimpsed in the fields at haymaking and harvest time.

And now she was here again, older, taller, her body rounded into a woman’s shape. Was it possible that those wretched supplicants for parish relief were her family? Yes, he recognised them, the surly man, the cross-eyed boy – and that poor lost-looking soul was her mother, incredible as it seemed. Edward longed above everything to help Susan, to assist her and relieve her of anxiety in any way he could.

As Susan silently repeated the words of the ‘Our Father’, she sensed an unspoken command, and against her will she raised her eyes to the Calthorpe stall and the dark blue gaze fixed intently upon her. She recognised Edward, the younger son now grown to manhood, strong and ruddy-complexioned. He was smiling, and she knew it was for her alone. Just for a moment their eyes met, then Susan hastily lowered her head for shame: he too would witness the public spectacle this morning.

When Dr Gravett passed the Luckets’ pew on his dignified progress up the aisle, the sour smell of unwashed flesh assailed his nostrils, and he frowned in revulsion; the verger should have warned him. Another time the applicants would have to wait outside in the porch. He glared at the sexton, who gave the signal for fiddles, flutes and voices to begin.

The rector cut them short after four verses, and, taking his place at the lectern, began to intone Morning Prayer. The General Confession, Absolution, Lord’s Prayer, Versicles and Responses followed in brisk succession, and the rector settled into his high-backed chair to endure the sung Venite and Te Deum. He then read the parable of the talents from St Matthew’s Gospel, extending it to include the preceding parable of the wise and foolish virgins, as not inappropriate for the occasion. As the people stood for the Creed, he purposefully ascended to the carved oak pulpit and cleared his throat. It was time at last for the main business of the morning.

‘“For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”’

He paused and closed the book. ‘Three servants were each given a sum of money by their master. An unequal amount, representing the unequal share we each receive of this world’s goods.’ He looked around the church. All eyes were upon him. ‘It is not the will of the Almighty that we should all start out with the same inheritance, and even if that were the case, a few years would bring about inequality. The hard-working and thrifty would prosper while the shiftless and idle would spend what they had and be reduced to poverty.’ He took a breath, and his voice deepened into judgemental sternness. ‘And there are those present here this morning who have squandered their money in habits of idleness and intemperance. They must surely feel a sense of shame.’

Complete silence had fallen on the congregation, and some heads turned towards the malodorous strangers from Lower Beversley.

Edward looked down the length of the nave to where Susan sat with bowed head, and anger rose within him. Must she always suffer for being born a Lucket?

Worse was to come.