Eppie (14 page)

Fetching a rose-patterned saucer from the crockery set
reserved for visits from the parson, she poured out the cream.

Martha kept the cake tin on the highest shelf in the larder,
supposedly out of Eppie’s grasp. Climbing the lowest shelves, she fetched it down
and reached for the shortbread. Familiar with the clunking lid and Eppie’s
mediocre table manners, Tipsy sprang between her feet and licked the brown sugar
topping that had sprinkled onto the floor. Stowing slices of shortbread in her
pinafore pockets, Eppie scurried out. 

‘Jarman, did you know about this?’ du Quesne cried, as he
and Squire Obadiah Bulwar rode over Miller’s Bridge. ‘I left you in charge.’

‘Beg pardon, sir?’ asked the bewildered bailiff.

‘Are you blind, a blockhead, or both? Haven’t you noticed
that wagon obstructing the packhorse bridge?’

‘Wagon, sir?’

‘Like the one with the wheel missing?’ Du Quesne emphasised
each word lingeringly as though Henry was dull-witted. 

Too nervous to speak to du Quesne, Boyle told Henry, ‘That
wagon’s had a lot of rough treatment. We was hurrying, like his lordship sez,
so we shovelled on extra stones. It proved too much.’

‘Stop blabbering, man,’ du Quesne growled. ‘The arrival of
the cattle is imminent. Is that nag by the medieval granary yours?’

‘We let Kindly graze when the wagon’s at a standstill,’
Boyle answered. ‘He gets brangy if he’s left in his traces for too long.’

‘You, boy, hitch that horse,’ du Quesne shouted to Dick. ‘Henry,
you’re useless. Ride back to the manor and make sure Cordwainer’s cleared the
yard in readiness.’ He pointed to Sam and Jaggery, the prisoners nearest to
him. ‘Shift
that wagon!’ 

Du Quesne and Bulwar slipped into easy conversation.

Standing at Ranger’s forelocks, Eppie craned her neck to
listen.

‘I imagine the turnpike road will prove invaluable to your
nephew,’ Bulwar said.

‘Thurstan intends setting up an express carriage service
with twenty-five pairs of post-horses. Flying coaches he’s going to call them. His
main concern is that he’s likely to face stiff competition from Hurry Eades, the
landlord of The Black Sheep. Diversification is the key. That is what I instil
in my nephew. Spread your capital widely. Develop other ventures, other
businesses, and you cannot go wrong.’

‘To my mind, aristocracy and commerce should not intermix. Farming
has always been my way and always will be.’

‘With this war against France the price of corn is fluctuating
wildly. A bad harvest will set you back.’

‘More like you’ll get into difficulties,’ Bulwar answered.

‘I can handle my money.’ Du Quesne became aware of Eppie
eyeing him up and down, from his white powdered wig to his silk stockings and
royal blue garters.  ‘Might I enquire as to what you are staring at,
Strawhead?’

‘Yer shiny buckles, sir. Harvey was selling some like ‘em for
tuppence.’

Also listening in, Wilbert said, ‘I’ll warrant ‘em buckles
cost more than my pa’s yearly wage.’

Du Quesne glared at Eppie. ‘Have you no work? Where is your
mother?’

‘She’s paltry and canna do much today, sir.’

‘The malady of the asinine,’ du Quesne muttered scornfully.

Seeing his lordship continue to glare at her, exasperated by
her presence, she ran off and proffered Dick a slice of shortbread.

His eyes lit up. ‘Is that for me? Fanks!’

Sam was trying, in vain, to lift the rear of the wagon.

Dashing up, Eppie wafted the shortbread. ‘I’ve brung you
this.’

Sam gazed in surprise at the biscuit. ‘That’s mighty kind.
Hold on to it a moment. Make some effort, Jag. I can’t do this on my own.’

Jaggery cast Eppie a cold look, wondering why he had been
denied a slice.

‘Come on, Jag,’ Sam said. ‘Give us a hand.’ He shouted to
the others, ‘We need spades. We’ll have to shovel off the remaining stones.’

Men on horseback whooped. Dust clouds billowed. Oxen cannoned
along the road

‘They’re here already!’ Sam said, alarmed. ‘By, they’re
going it a pace.’

Du Quesne cantered up on Ranger. ‘Lift that wheel back on. It’ll
hold temporarily.’ 

‘You’re wrong, sir,’ Sam answered. ‘Surely you can see the
axle’s shattered?’

Bulwar cast Sam an acid look. ‘We’ll take no impertinence
from you, Scattergood.’

Bellowing cattle loomed closer. At the sight, Kindly took
fright, whinnying and plunging in his traces.

Du Quesne vaulted from his horse. ‘Get this wagon off the
lane. That’s an order.’

Feeling the lash of du Quesne’s riding crop on his back, a
cloud of pain passed over Sam’s face.

‘’ere, you stop that!’ Eppie shrieked. ‘Sam’s poorly!’ She
recalled Gillow telling her that, in summer, Robert du Quesne had his hair
shaved. ‘You ought to go to jail for hitting Sam so hard, you sweaty-headed guinea
pig.’

Du Quesne turned on her, dangerously roused. ‘What did you
call me?’

She stamped her foot at him, eyes blazing. ‘You heard.’

Several oxen shot between them, their bulky, lurching flanks
barging the wagon.

Wilbert and Sukey jumped and cheered. 

Prisoners heaved the wagon off the lane.

The remaining oxen stormed relentlessly in the wrong direction.
Emerging from the shadow of Copper Piece Wood, the gamekeeper waved his arms in
a feeble attempt to curb the runaway cattle.

‘Fire over the beasts!’ du Quesne yelled. 

Herders lined up, ready to divert the oxen.

‘Stay where you are, you dolt, you’ll block the way,’ du
Quesne roared at a carter who was about to cross the bridge.

A violent blast rent the air. Abruptly, oxen at the head of
the herd doubled back and pummelled into those directly behind. Cattle kicked,
heads clashed. In a flowing, swaying mass they charged over the bridge.

Terrified, Eppie ran before them.

Only yards from home, a fresh horror fell upon her. Purposefully
leaning on his spade at the garden gate, Jaggery barred her way.

‘Eppie, get off the road!’ Sam yelled. 

She span round. Rushing to Claire’s, her toes caught in a remaining
pothole. Squealing, she thudded to the ground.

Restricted by his shackles, Sam knew he would never have
time to whisk her to safety.

Horns primed, the cattle surged, relentless in their tidal
race. Wild eyes rolled in sockets.

The oxen were almost upon her.

Someone fell upon Eppie, knocking her breath from her. Stifled,
she opened an eye a slit. Sam’s face was close to hers, his hair tickling her
cheek.

Oxen stormed over. The ground shook. Intermittently, the sun
was blocked out in a chequered pattern: light-dark-light-dark. Lancing blows
caught Sam. His head pressed upon hers, his lips over her ear, he uttered
abrupt cries of pain.

A strike to the back of his head, his hot, laboured breath
ceased.

Silver light swam before Eppie’s
eyes. Swiftly a black vault of nothingness closed over her. 

In Eppie’s fitful nightmare every scratching noise was a rat
coming to chew her face. Screaming, she awoke in the darkened bedchamber, her
heart palpitating.

Martha laid down her sewing and hastened to her side, a
lighted candle shielded in her hand.

At first Eppie could not recall the accident, or why,
battered and bruised, every joint in her body ached. She tried, without
success, to sit and peer into the wainscot bed. ‘Is pa asleep?’  

‘He’ll be feeling sorry for himself and gone off with George
to The Rogues’ Inn, drinking himself under the table.’

It all came back:  the stew on the wall, the stampede. 
‘Sam!’

Gloomy shadows scoured Martha’s pensive face. ‘Eppie, you should
know,’ she said softly. ‘Sam’s went.’

‘Where? Where’s he gone?’ 

Martha sought to conquer her strong emotions of loss. ‘I
didn’t dare look upon him. Boyle shouted to a carter to find out where his
brother’s farm was and take his body there.’

‘Dead!’ Eppie cried, sobbing. ‘Mister Sam’s dead! It’s all
my fault. I should’ve given him my crooked farthing, and he’d still be alive.’

Eppie hopped into the carrier’s
cart.

Jenny had got worms and so Martha thought it prudent for her
and Eppie to travel in the carrier’s cart to market. She stowed baskets of
produce beneath the back seat.

Reuben made a ticking sound with his tongue and his horse
set off.

‘Why d’ya call her Lightning when she trots this slow?’
Eppie asked.

‘So folk will think I run a speedy service. We wouldn’t want
the old mare to be too hasty; otherwise your ma’s eggs will be scrambled by the
time we arrive in Litcombe.’

The cart creaked past farms and cottages, picking up produce
destined for shops and businesses, parcels and letters to post in town and bags
of linen for washer women. A miller loaded a sack of flour for the master
baker, Richard Crafts. ‘Fine man is Richard,’ Reuben said. ‘The last time there
was a famine he distributed bread to the poor, at his own expense.’

They came within sight of Lynmere, a shallow mere edged with
waterlogged vegetation and an abundance of creeping mats of moss. Upon the
island the canopy of an alder had shattered, several of its branches burnt.

Lightning trotted down the winding track to Mulberry Farm.
The Williamson children were playing in a field with Smokey, their donkey. Gyles
and Esmond marched like soldiers, rapping drums. Ella, wearing one of her mother’s
dresses, had tied a rag doll onto the donkey’s saddle.

Their father was busy inside the carpentry shed.

Reuben swivelled his pipe to the side of his mouth.  ‘All’s
well, George?’

George followed the carrier’s cart into the yard. ‘Times
have been better. There’s a glut of barley on the market.’

Reuben helped Kath, George’s portly wife, to load baskets of
pears.

Eppie gazed at swallows, swooping and soaring.

‘Snow’s on the way,’ Ella said, dashing up. ‘They’re getting
ready to fly into the heart of the earth. Smokey’s foal is due soon. You must
come and see it when it’s born.’

Eppie beamed. ‘I’d love that.’

The cart wound back along the lane.

‘The other day a balloon floated over with a man in a wicker
basket,’ Kath said. ‘Gyles and Esmond were fishing. They dragged that mad Doctor
Burndread out of the mere. He’d jumped in the water when he realised the basket
was heading straight for the trees on the island. When it crashed into them
there was a massive explosion.’ She peeped beneath the white and yellow gingham
cloth that covered Martha’s basket. ‘
Another
pie for Wakelin! He does
enjoy his home comforts.’

Ezra, Reuben’s son, worked alongside Wakelin as an
apprentice cloth-dresser in Strutt’s cropping shop. ‘This is Ezra’s last month.
He’s going to be a journeyman.’

‘You’ll be proud of your lads, croppers being the highest
paid in the cloth industry,’ Kath said.

‘Not for long, I fear,’ Reuben answered. ‘With competition
from gig machines, hand work is a dying art.’

They left a shelter of ash trees. Gusting wind scattered
dust across the travellers.

Eppie sneezed. ‘That nearly blew my tooth out.’ Whimpering
with the dull pain, she wiggled her milk tooth.

Approaching a tollgate, Reuben dug into his pocket. ‘Where’s
me tuppence? Pete Mabey, a coal-merchant by trade, complains bitterly about the
tolls. He’s no option other than to put up his prices.’

‘I’m thankful we’re allowed to collect fuel from Copper Piece
Wood,’ Martha said. ‘At least fallen branches and those we can knock down with
our sticks are free.’

Only half-listening to the adult’s droning voices, Eppie
thrust out her legs and enjoyed the tickly brush of Lightning’s tail on her
ankles. Around them, fields dipped and rolled glossy green on a blanket of
clay.

Reuben noticed her preoccupied look. ‘Got any more of your
interesting notions?’

Gabriel gave her history lessons in the Crusader Oak. She cogitated
on the carrier’s waxy, sun-worn skin. ‘When the Archbishop of Canterbury was executed
in the Tower of London the axe man took masses of chops to get his head off.
D’ya reckon if the bishop had run off he’d still have been alive?’

‘I shudder to think! Here, take the reins; give me a rest. Let
her have her head. Lightning could do this journey trotting backward.’

‘This is making my tooth smile. When it comes out I’m going
to bury it in the woods for the faeries. If I’m lucky, they’ll leave a whole
farthing under my pillow, like they did last time.’

Topping the hill, the town was laid before them. Below the
towers of the Norman castle nestled a medley of cottages with peat-brown
thatched roofs, their white cob walls shining in the rays of the climbing sun.
Lapping to their sides, the roofs of cruck-framed cottages jumbled in a desultory
fashion. 

Reuben took the reins and they trundled up Swine Market
Street. ‘We’ll be lucky to find a tethering post.’

Crowds bustled around rows of open stalls that stretched to
the butter mart. Folk rattled cooking utensils, rifled displays and bartered
for boots.

A wooden window shutter had been pushed down, forming a
counter. The smell of freshly baked cakes and biscuits drifted from piled
displays. ‘Next!’ Richard Craft’s wife shrilled to the short queue.

Poker-faced, a fishmonger was wrapping fish in brown paper.

A black coach sped past, heading towards the castle. 

‘That’ll be Melchoir,’ said the carrier. ‘There must be a
petty sessions on.’

‘What’s one of them?’  Eppie asked.

‘Where Melchoir and a couple of other magistrates stick
their heads together for the trying of minor offences. Depending on what mood
they’re in, they’ll sentence some poor fellow to a few years in jail, even
death. It’s entirely arbitrary. Judge Baulke comes along once a month to hold a
sessions. Things don’t get so fiery then.’