A Carriage for the Midwife (6 page)

‘Oi’ll walk along o’ ye, Da,’ she agreed, having seen Polly running off down the lane in the direction of the Ash-Pits, making herself scarce after the trouble she had caused her sister. ‘Only ’ee must come now, Oi shan’t wait fur ’ee.’

So the father and daughter walked along Mill Lane together. On one side was the ditch and the hedge next to Bennett’s paddock field, and on the other side a shallow bank rose up to a wooded area where foxes prowled in the undergrowth and rabbits burrowed deep into the soft soil of the bank. Under the trees a thick, luxuriant growth of bracken covered the ground, the tough fronds standing four or five feet high.

Bartlemy took Susan’s arm. ‘Here, this way, Sukey, into the wood.’

She stared up at him in surprise. That ain’t no quick way, Da. ’Tis hard goin’, it be that overgrown.’

He smiled oddly, his eyes glittering in a way she had not seen before. Was he drunk? No, she decided, just a little silly after a couple of pints.

‘Come on, Sukey, over by here, gal,’ he muttered, dragging her bodily off the lane and into the darkening woods.

‘No, Dad,
no
, there be snakes an’ all sorts. Let’s jus’ go home.
Da
! What be the matter?’

For he was panting as if he had been running, and held on to her with a grip she could not escape. For some reason she suddenly thought of the little rabbits in the hayfield that day, helpless to avoid their fate.

‘Be a good gal, Sukey – a bit o’ a game wi’ yer dad, eh? Like this, see? Come on, be quick.’

And Susan found herself down on the ground, with her face pressed into the bracken. She lay prone, and felt her skirt being roughly pulled up, exposing her bare buttocks. Like other poor children she wore no underwear, and when she felt her skin being touched and her thighs separated, she began to howl and struggle instinctively. Then there was a sensation of weight upon her squirming body, which the man approached from behind, and her face was pressed even harder into the dense green ferns, muffling her horrified protests.

What happened next did not take long. There were gasps and grunts and ‘Keep still, Sukey, good gal,’ in a low growl, and something hot and fleshy thrust between her thighs. One last grunt and it was over.

He got up and she lay motionless on the ground. She felt her skirt being pulled down over her bare backside, but could not move. Her nostrils were full of the acrid smell of the bracken, and she heard his voice speaking as if through a mist of shame and nausea and incomprehension.

‘Get up, Sukey, an’ come on home. Yer Ma’ll be lookin’ out fur ’ee.’

He bent down and grabbed an arm; clumsily she staggered to her feet and let herself be dragged out of the wood and into the lane.

‘Come on, Sukey, there be no harm done. Take hold o’ yer Dad’s hand, there’s a good gal.’

Dazed and trembling like a leaf, she was pulled along the lane towards the Ash-Pits. As she walked she felt a stickiness running down the inside of her legs, and in time to come she would always connect its smell with the other smell of bracken crushed by the weight of a child and a man.

She ate nothing and spoke to no one when she stumbled through the door, but climbed straight up to the roost.

‘What be up wi’ ye, Sukey?’ asked her sister, but Susan did not reply. That night she wet herself, and Polly complained loudly about the soaked blanket.

‘’Ee be a dirty ol’ pig, Sukey, no better’n a babby!’

Susan made no answer, nor did she speak or raise her drooping head for the next three days. Bartlemy spoke jocularly to her, but she shrank from him; Doll gave no sign of noticing that anything was amiss. Polly became frightened.

‘Say summat, Sukey – Oi don’t like ’ee to be quiet!’ she begged. ‘Oi be sorry fur bein’ a bad gal – sorry Oi called ’ee a pig – only speak to me, Sukey, please!’ And she put her arms around the sister who had always shown her love, while tears trickled down her cheeks. ‘’Ee be a good’un, Sukey – an’ Oi loves ’ee!’ she sobbed.

And because of Polly’s innocent plea for attention, Susan managed to rouse herself and whisper, ‘Don’t ’ee worry, Poll, Oi’ll be better by an’ by.’

On that first occasion Susan was utterly confused and did not understand what this new experience meant. She only knew that something
wrong
had taken place, something that should never happen, and that she was part of it, an unwilling accomplice. It was shameful and untellable, a hideous secret that placed her apart from Polly and the boys, and over which she had no control.

At first she tried to send silent, imploring looks towards her mother, pleading with Doll to notice her, to ask what was the matter, to help her in some way; but the woman turned her head away and would not or dared not acknowledge the burden that her daughter was being forced to bear, first in fear and dread, then in helpless resignation, unable to escape for she had nowhere to go. As the months went by, Susan came to know that she was the third party in an unholy alliance; and love died without a word being spoken.

But Polly still needed her, perhaps more than ever now. It seemed important that Polly should never know or even remotely suspect that such a thing could happen. Susan’s love for her heedless young sister became even more fiercely protective, and helped her to survive when the shadow fell across her life and the light went out of her eyes.

One
day, vowed Susan,
one
day when I’m older and can work and earn money, I shall leave the Ash-Pits and take Polly with me. And we shall never see those two again.

Never.

‘SUSAN!’
CALLED MRS BENNETT,
leaning over the gate. ‘Come here, girl, I need you to go up to the school. Leave the harrow and come. No, not you, Polly – I want a girl o’ sense.
Susan!
’

The prospect of a glimpse inside the village school brought a momentary brightness to the girl’s grey eyes.

‘Keep on follerin’ them horses, Poll, and watch the boys while Oi be away,’ she muttered, and ran up the barley field to where the farmer’s wife stood holding her daughter Marianne’s needlework bag.

‘The silly, giddy girl left it behind on the settle,’ she grumbled, ‘but I don’t want her shown up in front o’ the Calthorpe girls. Hurry up, Susan, and get it to the little goose in time!’

The barefooted girl hurried down to the bridge over the Beck and across the green; skirting the pond she reached the main street, and straightway heard the clop of hoofs, the creaking of leather and the rattle of iron-rimmed wheels on cobblestones. She stared open-mouthed as the stately equipage passed quite close to her, its bodywork gleaming in the spring sunshine. Four high-necked horses were kept under control by the coachman perched aloft in front, his tricorn hat over his wig. Susan jumped back in alarm at his angry shout.

‘Watch out, yer silly wench. D’ye want to be trampled down?’

She almost lost her footing as the back wheels swept by, retreating in a light cloud of dust. A woman’s face glared from the window, and Susan’s heart hammered. She had never been so close to the Bever carriage, and was astonished at its size and height, so much grander than Miss Glover’s two-seater pony-trap that she drove when visiting in Beversley.

Recollecting her errand, Susan ran down the street, past the bakehouse and blacksmith’s forge to the school, a tall house at the end, almost facing Miss Glover’s cottage. She marched up to the front door and pulled on the bell rope, hoping to get a peep inside the place where Mrs Bryers taught her pupils those magic signs that could form themselves into messages for folk to send to each other without having to speak face to face. Susan’s imagination had been fired by Miss Glover’s ability to read the Bible and Prayer Book and the
Hampshire Chronicle
, and the way she wrote notes and lists on pieces of paper. Oh, happy children whose parents could afford the weekly shilling to send them to Mrs Bryers’ school!

She smiled eagerly at the maidservant who opened the door a crack.

‘Mrs Bryers don’t want no beggars round here.’

‘If ’ee pleases, Oi ha’ – er – Miss Marianne’s sewin’ bag,’ faltered Susan, holding it out and trying to look past the maid’s shoulder.

‘Then ye’ve no business wi’ it,’ came the reply as the bag was snatched from her hand. ‘Be off wi’ ye.’

And to Susan’s utter dismay the door was shut in her face. She knew that she should return to the barley field, but such was her desire to see inside the temple of learning that she decided to try to peep in at a window. The front of the house opened on to the street, and there were three tall windows, one with a convenient mounting-stone beneath it. Susan climbed on to this and stretched herself up until her head was above the windowsill.

And there it was, the big room with girls and boys seated on wooden forms, the smaller ones at the front. She recognised Selina and Caroline Calthorpe at the back with the Bennett girls, and Rosa and William Hansford somewhere in the middle with three of the Smart brood. She saw the Grimes children from the bakehouse and the Dummets from Crabb’s cottages, most of them younger than the thirteen-year-old girl who gazed in with such longing. The formidable figure of Mrs Bryers stood by the blackboard on which there were groups of those magic signs written in chalk.

Suddenly Rosa Hansford jumped with a cry.

‘Mrs Bryers, Mrs Bryers, there’s a face looking in at us!’

By the time they had all turned their heads in her direction, Susan had already dropped down and was heading for the road – straight into the path of a high-stepping young stallion and his rider. A confused jumble of impressions followed in quick succession: rearing hoofs, her own scream of terror, a boy’s shout – ‘No, Juniper,
no!
’ – then the hoofs plunging down on the cobbles, missing her by inches, and another shout as the young rider slithered down the horse’s flank, clinging first to the mane and then the neck, reaching the ground feet first but overbalancing as the horse shied violently sideways.

A boy lay sprawled in the dust, his jacket and breeches dirtied, his hat lying several feet away. The horse circled nervously round him, empty stirrups dangling.

Susan’s mouth went dry with fear, and she fell to her knees beside the young horseman, thrown from his seat because of her stupidity. To her indescribable relief he stared at her, blankly at first but then his eyes focused into recognition. He gave an uncertain smile and put his hand to his head.

He was Edward Calthorpe, alive and conscious.

‘Susan,’ he said. ‘Little Susan!’

‘Thank God,’ she murmured. ‘Can ’ee move, master? Be any bones broke?’

For answer he heaved himself up into an undignified position on hands and knees.

‘I trust you are well, Susan?’ he enquired politely.

‘Oh, never mind about me, master – can ’ee stand up?’

He stretched experimentally and slowly hauled himself to his feet, straightening his back. A trickle of blood oozed from a cut above his right eye, but he smiled as he held out his hands to her, to pull her up beside him.

At that moment Mrs Bryers came running out of the school, her black skirts flying.

‘You should be whipped, you idle creature! First you gape in at my window like a monkey, and now you’ve brought Master Calthorpe off his horse. He could have broken his neck!’

And then there was another voice, quietly stern.

‘Thank you, Mrs Bryers, you may return to your pupils. I will take charge of my cousin and the girl.’

Miss Glover’s cool authority had an instantly calming effect. She took hold of the horse’s bridle and led him to her gatepost, where she tethered him. Mrs Bryers gave a last glare at Susan and went back into the school while the boy and girl followed Miss Glover into the handsome stone cottage set back from the road in a pretty summer garden.

When Susan found herself sitting on a cane-bottomed chair in a neat parlour with Edward seated beside her, her spirits rose to a point that was almost happiness. It was more than relief for Edward’s safety, it was a sense of lightness and freedom. She looked around at the curtained windows and the carpet on the floor, savouring a way of living immeasurably distant from the squalor of the Ash-Pits. She already thought Miss Glover the wisest and most beautiful grown-up lady she knew, and now she realised that in her presence she was safe, with no need for the wariness that had become habitual to her.

‘I shall fetch water to bathe that cut, Edward, and my maidservant will brew tea for us,’ said the lady. ‘And then you must tell me exactly what happened outside.’

‘’Twas not because of this poor –’twas not Susan’s fault, Sophy,’ said Edward quickly. ‘’Twas that mettlesome Juniper. My usual mare was – in use, so I had to take him.’

Miss Glover nodded, and as soon as she had left the room he turned eagerly to Susan.

‘You know, I still remember that harvest supper when we met,’ he said, ‘and how you stood up for the bats!’

She smiled shyly. ‘Oh-ah, master, that were a long time ago, just afore that bad winter when my three little brothers died o’ the white throat an’ my brother Joby were born.’

Her eyes darkened at the memory, and Edward bit his lip.

‘I’m sorry, Susan, I’d forgotten that it was such a bad time for the – for so many Beversley people. Yes, of course, poor old Dame Firkin – I recall it all now. I beg your pardon for bringing it to mind.’

She did not reply, and he experienced a strange awkwardness, almost a feeling of inadequacy. Had he but known it, it was the same unease that his father had long felt when reminded of the plight of the poor in Beversley.

His cousin Sophia returned with a basin of water and set about cleaning the cut above his eye; he tried not to wince as she dabbed the skin dry and put a folded white handkerchief over it, tying the ends together at the back of his head.

‘I think that will suffice, Edward, for the bleeding has stopped,’ she said, picking up the basin and turning to Susan.

‘Now, young Susan, what brought you up to Beversley alone today?’

Blushing and stammering, Susan explained her errand for Mrs Bennett.