Winter’s Children (14 page)

Joss Snowden and the London Painter, July 1816

 

Mrs Snowder’s Yorkshire Drip Pudding

 

Take your eggs and whip them to snow.

Add plain flour and beat in until absorbed.

Thin down the batter with salt water until as thick as cream. Set aside to rest awhile.

Put in the oven at its hottest when the beef is nearly cooked and ready to be basted, and pour dripping into a hot tin.

Beat up the batter and pour onto boiling dripping.

Let the beef fat above drip onto it.

Cook until puffed up and brown.

Serve at once with gravy before the roast.

Young Joss Snowden ran out across the meadows chasing his big brothers’ footprints in the hay meadow. It was the wettest summer he could recall in all his thirteen years. His bare feet squelched in the battered grass and the seeds and burrs stuck to his breeches. They were nowhere to be seen, being too old to bother with a knobbly-kneed bairn still at his school books and smaller than his mother.

This should be the time for haymaking, scything the fields, gathering the stooks into haystacks, but the rain was ruining the crop.

Hay in June worth a silver spoon,
Hay in July worth a peck o’ rye,
Hay in August not worth a peck o’ dust.

 

His breeches were so sodden he might as well go paddle in the beck at the foot of Wintergill waterfall, and it was there he came across the strangest man, sitting like a gnome staring out across the water, with a book of empty pages in his hand: a short squat man with spectacles, a hooked nose and a red face.

This was no bogtrotter nor a farmer in thick breeches of woollen cloth. Farmers never had time to stand and stare at anything if it hadn’t got four legs. His boots were quality leather, well creased with walking. On his head was a flat crowned hat, but the oddest thing was he was sitting under the shade of an umbrella making pictures at great speed. His knapsack lay by his side, full of pockets and straps. Joss had never seen such a carry-all.

He crept up silently, fascinated by the way the man’s hand raced across the page.

‘What is it, boy?’ he snapped in an offcomer’s strange voice.

Joss jumped back under the thicket of bushes, not sure what to say.

‘You are making a likeness,’ was all he could think of as the man rose, shifted his position and proceeded to sketch the tumbling water over the rocks from a different angle. ‘I can show you a better foss than this ‘un,’ he boasted. ‘This is nobbut a spray.’ Joss knew a real waterfall, a foss, hidden from view up on the Snowden moors.

‘Is it indeed!’ the man replied, lifting his eyes to peruse this observer. ‘And where might that be?’

‘At Gunnerside Foss, sir, just a stride hence. I can show you, if you like, for the path is twisty.’

The artist rose awkwardly and closed his battered umbrella, packed up his leathery book into his knapsack and peered at his new guide. ‘Who might you be?’

‘Josiah of Wintergill, son of George Snowden, up yonder.’ He was proud of his farm and the grand windows that his grandfather, Sam, had built onto the farmhouse to warm the stone.

‘Why aren’t you at your studies, or are you just a farm boy untutored?’ The man stared hard over his spectacles as he was packing up.

‘I have my letters. The school is out for hay timing but the weather plays us fast and loose. I came here to see if fish were jumping but I see none,’ he found himself babbling on.

‘I have a rod and line,’ the man smiled, pulling a fishing rod from out of his umbrella as if he were a conjuror, and fixing his bait. ‘Let’s see if anything will take the bait.’ He sat down again promptly and started fishing.

Joss had never seen such a traveller in all his summers. It was true there were strangers abroad: walking men were known to gad about the Yorkshire Dales just for the exercise, but to this farmer’s son it was a mighty strange way to fill your time.

‘You’ve come from afar to make pictures?’ he asked.

‘This is my summer tour. Before you is a painter from London who journeys abroad each season,’ the painter whispered, hoping to make a catch.

Joss knew about pictures, for there was one in the old church, of Mary and Joseph, and the baby in the manger. He was not a churchgoer but a Methodist, and they had no chapel but met in a barn for Sunday worship. His father did not hold with the local parish church. Once he’d heard John Wesley preach at the market cross. This’d caused a heck of a stink in the family. His grandfather had all but disowned him for lowering his sights to be a Dissenter. But once Joss had seen the church picture in its gold frame through the open door, he was transfixed by its beauty and colour, and thought it very fine.

‘Do you sell your paintings?’ he asked, dangling his legs over the water but longing to have a sight of the sketching book. The only books he knew were the Bible and the school reader. He had never seen a book with empty pages before.

‘Only if you have sixty guineas to spare,’ the man replied. There was a silence. Only the buzz of the bees among the elderflower disturbed the air. He could not believe there was so much money in the world for a few daubings on a sheet of paper. How many prize tups would such a sum buy?

‘Can I see what you make?’ he was asking out of curiosity.

‘Not with these drips falling off the trees,’ the painter replied. ‘These are only sketches to be finished off elsewhere. I don’t show my work to just anybody.’

‘Not even if I showed you a right wondrous fountain, sir? You’ll happen not find it if I do not guide you,’ Joss bargained.

‘Impudent puppy! When you show me this wondrous fountain then I might, just might, show you a sketch or two, and only if the sky brightens, but first I must catch my supper, so silence, lad.’

‘Aye, sir,’ smiled Joss, youngest down the line of Snowdens, knowing full well when to stay silent and seize the moment.

Gunnerside Foss roared in full spate after heavy rain, spewing water over huge boulders, white foaming sprays crashing down into a chasm below, and the London painter stood as if bewitched. Joss sensed he must not disturb the moment or the man might send him away. He was curious to see what pictures he might conjure up from his battered sketchbook.

‘Leave me be, boy. I never work before an audience.’ The man ignored his companion, turning to his knapsack eagerly.

‘But you promised to show me …’ Joss felt cheated. Had he not brought him to this wondrous scene and now he was shooed away like some troublesome flea?

‘Not now, laddie,’ said the man. ‘Take this fish to your mother, ask if she will cook it for my supper: plain with no trimmings, mind. If she has a spare bed for the night I will pay for my board and then I might show you a page or two of my book.’

‘My mam will do you proud. Her drip pudding is crispest in the dale. We have many chambers in the house,’ he smiled. ‘The farm track is just a mile from this path taking the right fork. Our house is not to be missed with the biggest windows shining afire from top to toe.’ He took the fish and made for the path.

‘Be gone and leave me to the light before it disappears,’ the London painter dismissed him with a wave of the hand but the boy was full of excitement. His mother liked strangers at the door with coins in their pockets. They brought tales of far-off places that she drank up like expensive tea, savouring each sip, rehashing to her neighbours what she had gleaned of the ways of the world. Tonight she would not be disappointed.

True to his word, as shadows fell across the fields, Joss watched the stranger making his way along the path.
There was a crooked man who walked a crooked mile…
His walking was lopsided and it was late.

Joss was weary of waiting, his eyes were heavy but he was determined to have his reward. The fish would not be put on the griddle pan until the stranger was through the kitchen door.

Father was at his class meeting. No London painter would keep him from his weekday worship and Bible study. Joss feared his mother would send him off to bed while his big brothers were allowed to sit and stare by the fire in silence.

Replete with fresh fish and vegetables, roast rib, drip pudding and a slice of apple and cheese pie, the London painter burped with satisfaction.

‘Come on, boy, I suppose patience must have its reward.’ The man lifted his knapsack to remove the leather-backed sketchbook onto the table. ‘Wipe your fingers first.’

Joss needed no bidding as he sat down by the light of the candle to examine each selected page. They were wondrous scenes, just like those from an illustrated Bible that the preacher carried to Sunday services. Some of the scenes were tinted and coloured: swathes of sky and storm clouds, caverns spouting great waterfalls, castles on high mountains, pinnacles of rocks with lightning crashing down across the moors. There were scenes he recognised from his own district; Ingleborough hill and Pen-y-ghent, the riverside and the old corn mill near Settle. He had never seen anything so grand in all his born days.

‘How do you conjure up our world as if by magic? And these are but a few of your works.’ He pointed, breathless with admiration. Was each of these worth sixty guineas?

‘This is not the full work but partial sketches, reminders for me to work from when I take them back to London. Here is where the inspiration begins, standing in the rain, on the top of the crag listening to the curlews and skylarks … You are indeed fortunate to live among such glory.’ The artist turned to Joss’s mother, who smiled and nodded.

Joss yawned, looking at one sunset that caught his eye. ‘A’ve never seen a sunset like yon.’ He spoke honestly with the eye of a tired child. The London painter stared at his sketch for a moment and smiled.

‘No, young man, but don’t you wish you had?’

Joss tossed and turned, scrunched up restless in his bed. How could a man earn such fortune for scribbling with pen, ink and paints? Even now he was lodged in state in the parlour bed with the curtains, like an honoured guest. He talked late into the night when Father returned and queried him further on the state of the world. He had lodged with the Fawkes family at Farnley Hall and was on speaking terms with Harewood House and other great houses of Yorkshire. Father showed him round his house with pride and viewed the sketches with mouth agape. In the morning the painter would be gone for ever.

The boy rose at first light, anxious to sneak one last look in the knapsack. He tiptoed carefully into the parlour and peered at the pictures with longing. It was the scenes he recognised that stirred him most. This must be how God sees the world, he thought. So many repetitions of the same scene, surely one of them would not be missed.

Once this thought seeded itself in his head it would not be dislodged. How could he ever afford sixty guineas? The sketches were of his own country. The stranger was taking what was free for all to see, capturing God’s world that could never be bought or sold for golden guinea pieces. Had not he shown the artist the very hidden beauty of these parts and found him safe lodging?

His hand turned the pages to Gunnerside Foss and the views from the Wintergill moorland crag. He counted five sketches and his fingers found themselves gently removing one sheet slowly and then another, silently until they lay loose in his trembling hand. He was shaking with the enormity of his sinning, but the London painter did not stir from his slumbers. He slipped one back, ashamed, but not the other. The book was shut and placed back.

He crept back up the stairs, remembering to tread the third step with care. He rolled the parchment into a tube, wrapped it in his best linen kerchief and stuffed it carefully behind the loose panel in the wainscot that held all his treasures: birds’ eggs, a silver buckle, the silver coin he found by the water’s edge. He did not want to think about what he had just done. His father would beat the skin off his backside if he knew.

He could not sleep for guilt so he dressed and ran out towards the rocky crag where he could watch the sun rise slowly. This was God’s sunrise and it should be free. He would stay out of doors until the London painter was long gone.

‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers;’ said the writer of Hebrews, ‘for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’ Joss wondered at this verse many a time in the months that followed, thinking of the stranger and of his own theft. It stood like some great boulder between him and his Maker and he didn’t know how to make amends.

Then the lazy sun decided to put in a late appearance and seared the dale with blazing sunshine. They were out from dawn to dusk, mowing, stacking hay, loading it onto carts. Joss was too tired to think about his secret. The days grew hotter, and late in the afternoon he took to swimming in the river at Bankwell. It was here he first clapped eyes on Susannah Carr.

The Carrs didn’t mix in the village, being more gentry than farmers, and their children were sent away to school. They were churchers not chapellers, and lived in the old house at Bankwell with servants and a carriage. Banker Edward Carr was a drunkard and a fool, so said Joss’s father, but had built cotton mills with spinning machines down by the river and brought many strangers to work the machines. Now the new turnpike road from Keighley to Kendal carried wool and cotton back and forth to everyone’s satisfaction.

Joss noticed a girl sitting on the riverbank dressed in white muslin and fancy frills. Her ringlets shone gold in the sunlight and her maid fussed over her. He’d never seen her before and stared across, but her maid was having none of it.

‘Don’t be rude,’ she shouted at him. ‘Come on, Susannah, we won’t linger where rough boys lurk.’ They rose up and gathered their picnic, making him feel uncouth and angry. At least chapel had taught him that all were equal in the sight of the Lord. This was the first time he had felt himself shabby, barefoot and lumpen in his homespun breeches. There was something about that girl that reminded him of Mr Turner and his world of beautiful pictures when he slipped the sketch out of its hiding place in the wall.

Susannah Carr was lonely at Bankwell. Her father took little interest in his only daughter, shutting himself in his library with only his wine bottles for company. Sometimes Papa was too busy to bother with anything. There was the mill to oversee, and he was a partner in some new district bank. He rode with the local hunt and soon she would join them. She attended a little seminary in Scarpeton, but she hated all that singing and sewing and sitting around. There were no girls of her class to visit in the district, just Eliza, her serving maid, for company on the long dark evenings when they sat in the drawing room waiting for Papa to put in an appearance, but he never did, waiting for Aunt Lydia to write her a long letter, which never came. The servants had more fun and games in the village than they did, she thought as she raced across the fells, unchaperoned.