The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (13 page)

Now she stroked the folds of the overfull skirt, the silk rasping under her work-roughened fingers, and wondered whether Amos would allow Damask to wear it for her wedding. Most likely not; but afterwards...surely Danny would not be so strict. Julie was sure in her heart that it was Damask who drew Danny to chapel...

What beautiful small stitches she could make in those days; now her fingers were clumsy. And what a lovely shade of blue. Not so good a colour for Damask, with her yellow-brown eyes, as it had been for her; but the lace on the bodice had yellowed with age and would make a kind of match. It would look well enough.

She took out the small heavy parcel which had lain below the dress, unfolded the bit of linen in which it was wrapped and looked fondly at the handsome gold watch thus displayed. It had belonged to her grandfather and had been given to her by her grandmother. Neither Mrs Greenway nor any other member of the family could understand why she should be chosen to be the recipient; sometimes she thought the old woman had done it to spite her three sons and seven grandsons who all coveted it. However, hers it was, and when she was married Amos had made a neat little leather case for it and it had hung on the wall and kept time for the household. Then during the great gale in December 1789 the roof of Nettleton Chapel was blown off and funds were urgently needed for its repair. Amos had suggested selling the watch. Then Mrs Greenway had told a lie--and one which cost her never a pang of conscience.

'No, I mustn't sell it; my Gran said so. Thass to be kept in the family and passed on. If this one is a boy'--she was pregnant at the time--'he must hev it. If not it'll go to Damask. 'Tain't mine, really, you see. I'm only holding it to pass on.'

There had been two still-births since Damask was born, and this pregnancy was not going well; perhaps for that reason Amos refrained from an insistence which might upset his wife. But after that Julie never felt that the watch was really safe, so one day she opened it and put a tiny splinter, very delicately, in a vital place. So the watch stopped and there was no money just then for watch-mending: It went into the drawer and she hoped Amos had forgotten its existence. Not that she minded much. It was not her intention to let Damask go into the Fuller family as bare as a hedge tinker. Everybody else in the six parishes might think the cobbler's daughter had made a catch; Mrs Greenway knew differently. On her side of the family there were people every bit as good as the Fullers, and better. Damask might be only the daughter of a cobbler too unworldly to ply his trade and be prosperous, but if Mrs Greenway could in any way contrive it she was going to her husband with the 'three of everything' which made up a proper bridal chest. She eyed the watch ominously, wrapped it in the bit of linen and put it in the pocket of her apron. Then she relocked the drawer, went downstairs, wrapped her shawl about her and went hobbling across to the Ashpoles' place.

Matt was at home, taking his ease, bootless and unbuttoned, before a roaring fire. A little later in the year he would be out with his ramshackle old cart and his bony old horse, buying up whatever he could find that was cheap and selling it as soon and as profitably as possible; but in March, when the weather was bad and there was little huckstering to be done, he stayed at home, except on the days when he drove to Baildon.

Mrs Ashpole, Julie was gratified to see, was not in the untidy, stinking room, where, on a sack by Matt's feet, his lurcher bitch was on the verge of giving birth to pups.

'The missus is poorly,' Matt explained. 'We kilt a pig last Monday and she overet herself on chitterlings. Bin sick as a dawg. But she's awright. Just lay there groaning and throwing up. Thass me owd Ripper here I'm worrited about.' He stretched out his foot in its filthy torn stocking and gently nudged the lurcher's flank. 'Gitting a bit owd for this game, ain't you, gal? But then bitches on heat don't take no heed of their birthdays!'

'If there was anything I could do for Mrs Ashpole ...' Julie said, sincerely hoping there was not. 'But it was really you I wanted to see.'

'Show your good sense, too. She's nowt to look at this minnit, I can tell you.' He grinned his good-natured, graceless grin. 'And what can I do for Mrs Greenway?'

'A great favour; though there'd be a bit of profit in it for you. Only you'd hev to promise me not to say a word about it to anybody.'

'Want a love-letter took? I'm your man, missus! Wouldn't be the first by a long chalk; I've done some jobs in my day.'

He ran his shrewd little piggy eyes over her as he spoke, inwardly savouring the irony of his suggestion. It was odd, he thought, but she hadn't worn as well as his missus, for all she had such a good husband. He and his wife had furious rows which often ended in blows and they'd brought up a large family, few of whom were anything but a nuisance, but there was some sap left in his old woman, whereas poor Julie, a comely girl in her day, had shrivelled like a leaf.

'Go ahead,' he said, quite kindly, 'tell us the worst; no need to be shy with me.'

She told him what she wanted him to do, giving as excuse for her secrecy and need to use him Amos's sensitive feelings. 'Naturally he'd like to provide for his daughter, any father would; but he can't, and I wouldn't for the world hev him know I'd had to sell the watch.'

'Let's have a look at it. Whoo--thass a nice ticker. Do it go?'

'I think so.' She opened it and picked out the little sliver. Amos had wound it all those years ago in the attempt to set it going, and now, with just a shake, it started ticking again.

'Good as new. Why, yes, I can get rid of that all right. Mind you, I'm risking my good name to help you. 'Tain't my class of goods at all, they'll surely think I lifted it. Never mind, that'll buy all the flannel drawers your Damask'll need.'

The coarseness rasped, but she smiled and thanked him. 'Hi, though,' he said. 'Amos is bound to see the stuff, ain't he? Where're you going to say you got it?'

'I hadn't thought as far as that,' Julie admitted. 'Wimmen never think a thing to the end,' Matt said, grinning, 'and maybe thass a good thing. If they did the world would've ended with Adam and Eve, eh, missus?' He looked down at the dog and clicked his tongue encouragingly. 'Tell you what. Amos could wring out half a crown if he really had too, I reckon? All right then. I'll get the stuff and muck it about a bit--only on the outside, and anyway it'll wash off--then I'll bring it along and arst you to buy it. Say I got it dirt cheap because it was dirty. Ha ha. Amos'll give me half a crown and I'll take a penny in the shilling of what I get for the watch. Fair enough?'

'Oh, thank you! That is a wonderful idea. I shall be everlastingly grateful. And you won't say a word, not even to Mrs Ashpole.'

'She's the last I ever tell anything to. Ah'--he dropped to his knees beside the dog--'thass the way; heave and shove. Soon be over now. Good owd Ripper, pod the little bastards.'

Late on Wednesday evening there was a great knocking on the Greenways' door and Amos Went to answer it. Julie heard Matt Ashpole's voice say, 'Hello, owd cock I Got a bargain for you tonight. With your gal getting hitched I reckoned this would be worth half a crown to you.'

Mrs Greenway, with her heart beginning to beat rapidly, heard those opening words, but Amos's reply, spoken more gently, escaped her; then she heard Matt start shouting abuse, and then break into a great roar of laughter. Finally the door shut. Amos came back into the kitchen, empty-handed.

'Matt Ashpole, dead drunk, trying to sell me some great quantity of cotton and flannel goods for half a crown,' he said, shaking his head ruefully. 'He couldn't possibly have come by them honestly, and I told him so straight; I told him the receiver was as bad as the thief and he just laughed in my face.'

It was a blow and for a little while Mrs Greenway was felled by it; but she had had blows before and lain supine and then bobbed up again. Two days later, when Amos had gone in Shad's donkey cart to buy leather at Baildon, she went across to the Ashpole cottage and when Amos returned the two rolls of material were in the kitchen.

'You wronged Matt Ashpole, Amos,' she said. 'He was drunk, but he didn't steal this stuff. Claughton, the draper at Colchester, is giving up business, he's sold his shop to a grocer and he's got to get it all clear by Lady Day when they move in. So the last things, soiled or faded, he was practically giving away. So...I thought you wouldn't mind if I snatched up the bargain. We owe Matt half a crown.'

The next day was Saturday; the day when Damask came home, bringing, as usual, the pudding pieces. Mrs Greenway could hardly wait until the pudding was made and put in the saucepan before displaying her purchases. 'There's enough here for three of everything, summer and winter, which is what a girl should have,' she said. "Then I thought you could spend your money on a lindsey woollen dress, and it ought to be a nice yellowy-brown colour. Not a wedding-dress, something that'll be useful for everyday best, sort of. I've got...well, if we can talk your father round...I've got your wedding-dress laid away; the one I wore myself.'

No outburst of girlish excitement such as she expected welcomed this speech. Damask's face went red, then white, and she looked embarrassed.

'But, Mother--nothing's been said about any wedding.' 'Of course not. That wouldn't be seemly. But you and Danny are walking out, and the Fullers asked you to Sunday dinner; and though you couldn't go it's just the same, it shows they agree. And it's for you and me to look ahead. You won't hev time for sewing, and I'm slow these days. Once I could stitch as quickly as I could talk, but not now.' She held out her twisted hands with the thumbs which seemed to grow more and more powerless every day and which were doubling in under her palms as though to find shelter for their weakness. Damask looked at them with pity. It was strange, she thought, how in the last few months she had felt herself more drawn to her mother. Up to the time of her conversion she had preferred her mother to her father; she was less strict, less unworldly and not so set against taking pleasure in anything outside the chapel. Then, when Damask's heart changed, everything changed; Amos moved into the ascendant, Julie moved to decline. Damask had sensed, as Amos had sensed long ago, that behind Julie's acceptance and compliance there was some small reserve. She was not, as they were, wholehearted in the cause. Therefore for almost five years she had seemed shadowy, negative. And then, with just such another sudden change, everything had turned topsy-turvy again, and in the emotional confusion which had beset her since October it had seemed to Damask that her mother was more likely to understand her than her father was. All this unordered flow of feeling went through her mind now as she stood looking at the two rolls of stuff and heard her mother say, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, that marriage should not yet have been mentioned.

Was she wrong, too impatient, in thinking that the word should have been spoken by now? After all, as her mother had said, the Fullers had invited her to Sunday dinner, which was the recognised way for parents to show their approval. None of Danny's other girls had ever been so recognised by his parents. She was sure of that, but she had asked him just for the pleasure of hearing him say so, and he had given the right, the pleasing, the reassuring answer, but in a curious way, as though the whole subject embarrassed him. She had wondered at the time whether it was tactless of her to mention all those girls...but afterwards she had wondered whether Danny felt that his parents had been a little hasty.

She had not been able to go to dinner and thus be, as it were, established, because she was never free until afternoon on her Sunday out, but she had, on the nearest Saturday, gone' to tell Mrs Fuller and explain, and she had been given plum cake and cowslip wine--completely harmless despite its name, Mrs Fuller had assured her; and she had been shown the quilt on which Mrs Fuller was working this winter and asked if she liked the pattern. Even Mr Fuller, though less warmly welcoming than Mrs Fuller at first, had ended by being friendly and showing her his cattle and pigs. She had really felt accepted and respectable that afternoon; and she had expected that on the way back to Muchanger Danny would say something about getting married. After all, they'd seen one another twice a month ever since October and his family had asked her to Sunday dinner.

Her mother's voice broke in on her thoughts.

'You are fond of him, aren't you?'

'Oh yes. I'm fond of him.' What a weak, poor word to use. She wondered what her mother would say if she used

the right ones.

'And it's plain he's head over heels in love with you. When you think what a young rip he was and look at him now...you'd hardly believe it.'

Yes, there was that, too. She knew that she had power over him. If she said, 'Go and jump in the river,' he'd

probably do it...

Nevertheless there was something--well, not wrong exactly; something queer about it all.

There was another trouble too; the violence of her own feeling for him. It frightened her. She believed that she would remember until the day she died the first time he kissed her, which was when he came to take her back after her November visit home; her bones had melted and she'd turned dizzy and there was nothing left on earth or in the heavens above or in the waters under the earth save the pressure of his hands on her waist and the pressure of his lips on hers and the savage hunger that they awakened. She'd pulled herself free and run into the house and up to her little attic bedroom and cried and prayed God to forgive her for feeling like that about Danny Fuller, who was, after all, only a human being. It was awful to think that she had been tempted to behave like Sally Ashpole and all the rest of them----

'You'll see, it'll work out right,' her mother said. 'I reckon Danny isn't used to keeping company with a respectable girl, it probably makes him shy like. And, anyway, we got this stuff cheap; there'll be no harm in laying forward a bit whatever happens.'

On the other side of the village Mrs Fuller, chopper in hand, stood regarding what was left of half a pig after the hind leg and shoulder had been taken off to be smoked. When her mental calculations were complete she raised the chopper and dealt two expert blows, took a knife and did a bit of trimming and neatly scored what would be the crackling. The very best middle cut; what better form could her goodwill take?