Winter’s Children (15 page)

Her pleasure was to put on a riding habit, saddle her fine pony, and ride across the fields away from Eliza, astride her horse like a boy, her hair flying in the wind under her tall hat. Side-saddle was too sedate.

One day, as she was careering across the fell, she didn’t see the deer shoot out of the thicket in front of them, startling Mercury, so he reared and threw her to the ground, then bolted off with an empty saddle. Susannah lay on the hard turf, feeling stupid, watching her steed heading off down the slope leaving her a long trek home. ‘Damn and blast you!’ she yelled into the wind.

Looking up, she saw the shadow of a youth staring down at her. He had appeared out of nowhere in his leather chaps and corduroy leggings.

‘Are you injured?’ he asked, taking off his broad-brimmed hat.

‘Thank you, I’m fine, no bones broken just my pride … stupid horse.’ When she looked closer there was something terribly familiar about his broad open face.

‘Stay put, miss,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll go and find your cob.’

‘He’s not a cob but a fine-bred hunter,’ she corrected him.

‘I like Dales blacks meself,’ he continued. ‘They do the job nicely on a farm.’

‘Don’t bother, Mercury will take himself home,’ she sighed. ‘It’ll do me no harm to walk back.’

‘Not after a tumble it won’t. Wintergill’s nowt but a stride away. My mam will see thee right.’

‘I couldn’t possibly,’ she smiled, gathering her skirts to jump up, but her head was spinning and she wobbled.

‘See, I told you. Come and have a dish of tea and we’ll see you back down safe. Thy father’ll be worried.’

‘My name is Susannah Carr,’ she said, holding out her hand as grown-ups did.

‘Aye, I know, I’ve seen you before.’

He was blushing, not looking her in the face, and then she recognised that look. He was one of the rough boys by the river.

‘Which farmer’s son are you?’ she asked, knowing it was polite to make inferiors feel comfortable.

‘Josiah Snowden, miss, but everyone calls me Joss.’

They walked slowly towards the open gate and up the fell to the stone farmhouse and all the pungent smells of a busy farmyard. The farm boys doffed their caps at her presence and she waited on the doorstep as Joss went in to warn his mother of her unexpected arrival. She could sense the flurry of tidying and clearing away before she would be shown into their best room.

Susannah often went on visits with her aunt to the low-beamed stone houses to dole out alms and baskets of fruit and cakes. She had learned not to turn her nose up at the rough smells assaulting her nostrils, but she had never been on a working farm before: not one so high up the hill with such wonderful views over the valley. It had a better aspect than Bankwell House, which was closer to the river and darker, facing south and east.

‘Come in, come in!’ smiled Mistress Snowden in a fluster of welcome, straightening her mobcap and curtsying. She had a pleasant round face and bright blue eyes. ‘I will mash a dish of tea and there are fat rascals straight off the griddle.’

Aunt Lydia trained her always to take a bite and a sip but no more, for she might deprive poor children of their supper, but here was such a pile of baking, bread and fancies on cream china plates. There was a wall dresser full of pewter plates and a wall clock ticking away. Everything sparkled in the firelight. The fire in the chimney blazed with such ferocity that she could feel the heat warming her through. Joss was standing dumbstruck, tall and fair like his mother, who clucked around her like a mother hen. There was a different warmth here, more like the chatter in the servants’ hall before it fell silent when she walked in unannounced.

‘I don’t get much company passing the door, just pedlars and bogtrotters, but having said that, young Joss brought another visitor a while back: a London painter on his travels. He drew some bonny sketches of our district, didn’t he, son? He said we had the best view in all Christendom and I didn’t gainsay him,’ she laughed.

Susannah sipped the tea and bit into the spicy cake, and kept on nibbling until it was all gone, not a crumb. She blushed at this boldness.

‘That’s what I like to see, a hearty appetite. Have another,’ said Mistress Snowden, offering the plate again, but Susannah declined.

‘I must be on my way before the light goes.’

‘Joss and I will walk you back partway. It is only proper,’ she said, reaching for her cloak hanging on the hook at the back of the door.

They walked slowly at first, with an awkward silence, but then Susannah fell back with Joss. ‘Do you have a habit of inviting strangers to your farm?’ she said.

‘Mr Turner, the London painter, wanted lodgings for the night. We have upper rooms. My brothers and me, we bed down together,’ he replied. ‘They were really good, the likenesses. He showed them to me.’

‘We have lots of pictures but I never look at them,’ she confessed.

‘You should if they are all like Mr Turner’s. There was one of the Foss.’ Joss hesitated, looking at her carefully. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

She nodded eagerly.

‘There were so many drawings, all of the Foss, I let one slide away out of his book and I have it still.’ He bowed his head, looking at her through the side of his eye. ‘There, ‘tis said. It has worried me so long. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’

Susannah stopped and looked him straight in the eye, for she was about the same age and height. ‘Of course not, never. Ladies don’t gossip.’

‘That’s all right then,’ he smiled. As village boys went he was quite presentable.

‘Are you ever afraid?’ she smiled back.

‘I will be if my father ever finds that piece of paper behind the wainscot, very afraid.’

She looked at him and smiled. She was fearful when Papa came in roaring drunk, shouting and cursing and then crying into his glass.

‘Favour for a favour then, Josiah Snowden. Give me that drawing and I will hide it for you until you come to collect it. There are hundreds of hidy-holes in Bankwell. Cross my heart and hope to die but your secret’s safe with me.’ Susannah solemnly crossed herself and they shook hands on it like farmers over a sheep pen deal.

‘Done,’ Joss laughed.

‘What’s undone?’ said his mother, turning round.

‘Nothing, Mam, just a game,’ he replied.

In the days that followed Joss wondered if he had dreamed the girl’s visit, but his mother kept going over every detail of Susannah’s fine appearance, the cut of her riding jacket, the quality of the woollen skirt and her dainty leather gloves. The servants had spread the gossip up the dale how the master was bereft of an heir and how the girl must now be brought out to make a fine marriage.

‘She’s a real little lady, is that one,’ Joss’s mother sighed. ‘You did well to bring her here.’

Joss was lost in his own worries. Did Susannah really mean to keep his secret? Should he risk taking the sketch down to Bankwell? They had made no arrangement to meet again but the guilty theft was burning a hole in the wood panelling. He rushed up the ladder stair when everyone was out at their chores and fished it out, stuffed it in his waistcoat lining and made his way down the path.

At first his steps were bold and fast in the descent, and then he strolled through the village past the lich-gate of St Oswald’s church. He dawdled over the river bridge in the direction of Bankwell House, not sure which entrance to take through the arched gate. It was the closest he had ever been to the manor house, with its golden stone and ivy-clad walls. One glimpse told him the stable yard and paths were not swept as well as their own yards. A groom came out to greet him.

‘Now then, young Snowden, what brings ‘ee down these parts? Come a-courtin’ Ellin Bargh in the kitchen?’ he laughed.

‘No,’ Joss blushed. ‘I’ve got a message for Miss Susannah,’ he stuttered.

‘Have you indeed? We’ll see about that. And what might your business be?’

‘It’s private. I have something to give her. She did ask for it,’ he added, not sure now how to proceed.

‘Oh, I’m sure Miss Susannah will get it a plenty when she’s bit older but she’s a tad young for carrying on with farm boys,’ the groom roared. ‘Hey up, lads! Young Joss has come a-courtin’ and him not thirteen summers. They start them early, up Wintergill. It must be all that fresh air.’

The men stood around gawping at him, and Joss wanted to flee from their teasing. He was wrong to have come and made a fool of himself. He turned to go just as Susannah trotted into the yard from her morning ride. There was a scurry of attention to horse and rider, but Joss bent his head and walked away.

‘Joss!’ She raced after him, waving her whip. ‘I thought it was you.’

‘I’ll be off, miss. Sorry to trouble you.’

‘No, wait … Did you bring it? The picture – did you bring it or is it discovered?’ she whispered, her eyes burning into him with interest.

The girl had remembered their secret and his heart leaped that he was acknowledged. ‘It’s hidden in here,’ he smiled, patting his long jerkin.

‘We can’t open it here,’ she whispered. ‘But wait under the river bridge on the path. I’ll change and say I’m walking down to collect berries or something. Meet you there,’ she ordered, and left him standing.

The men were watching them but then Susannah barked at them to get on with their jobs, and he was forgotten.

The two of them hid under the stone arch as he rolled out the sketch from its linen pouch. ‘You know where this is?’ he said, watching her face pale as she recognised the waterfall scene.

‘He’s captured that cold dark place. They say it’s haunted,’ she offered.

Aye, I’ve heard that too, and sometimes I’ve felt it. Happen you don’t like it much,’ he sighed, making to roll it.

‘Oh, yes, I do. I promise to keep it for you and I will. Are you my friend?’ she said.

‘Aye, I am that,’ he replied.

‘Then you’ll have to learn to speak properly. Say “yes”, not “aye”, and “no” not “nay”,’ she ordered. ‘And I shall be your tutor. This’ll be our meeting place. I shall wait from the quarter-hour chime to the half-hour chime, and no more.’

‘When?’

‘Sunday afternoons, but don’t be late.’ Susannah waved the parchment in the air. ‘Don’t worry, I have a secret place for this.’ Then she was gone.

It was hard getting away on a Sabbath. The cows and the hens didn’t know which day of the week it was, so all must be prepared before chapel. Then there was the special dinner to eat that Mother took trouble to make. More chores and then Sunday class back down in the village. This was where they learned to read and write their names, copy scriptures and listen to visiting preachers. If he wagged off the class someone would tell of his absence. Joss hovered at the back, dashing out early to make the meeting place. Sometimes he waited and waited and she never turned up, and it was a long wet walk back up to Wintergill.

Then she would arrive as if nothing had happened, standing proud in some pretty taffeta gown that rustled as she walked, her ringlets bobbing, and they sat and talked and fished and she showed him how to pronounce words correctly.

He sat and listened to her worries. Her world was so different from his own. How he longed to be her equal, to ride and jump for pleasure, not necessity, to eat fine foods the like of which he’d never heard: pineapples, melons and other fancy fare.

He told her how he wanted to build up their breeding cattle and make Snowden’s farm the biggest and the best in the district. How his big brother Ben was to marry a farmer’s girl over the moor and Tom wanted to go into the town and make his fortune. His father was not well so he must stay to be about their business.

‘I’m going to stay with Aunt Lydia soon and when I’m older she will bring me out,’ Susannah told him.

‘Out where?’ he asked.

‘Out into society, you bumpkin, to make a good marriage,’ she laughed.

Her words brought a chill into his heart that soon their worlds would separate for ever. He was just a country yokel, a plaything to be picked up and dropped, a nothing boy. As he walked back that afternoon, he felt a rage inside him that there was no equality in this world. It wasn’t fair. That was when he heard a voice ranting in his head.

‘Then make thyself her equal, laddie. Learn thy letters and make summat of thyself.’

The Snowdens of Wintergill bowed to no man but their Maker, his father once said. Well, he would show her and all the Carrs that he was worthy to be her suitor one day, not her secret cast-off.

Joss never went back to the river bridge after that. He would not be at her beck and call. Sunday school was more important now for there was so much to learn and so little time. From that moment on Josiah Snowden was a driven man. One day he would make Susannah Carr not just his friend, but his bride.

Susannah waited and waited long past the half-hour chime, but still Joss didn’t come. How dare he make her wait in the rain with her skirt all muddy and her ringlets hanging like rat’s-tails? This was the last time she was ever going to meet him, the rude boy. There was so much to tell him. How Aunt Lydia had written with an invitation to attend seminary in York. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go so far away from everything she’d known.

‘I don’t want to go to York,’ she announced.

‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ Papa ranted at her. ‘How else will I ever get you off my hands? Girls are expensive to marry off. The sooner we start, the sooner your aunt will find you a husband to pay for all your frills and falderals. There’s no one here rich enough even to keep you in ribbons.’ How Papa raved about the output of the mill and the cost of wages and new machines.

Well, Joss Snowden could go hang himself, for all she minded. What did she care for such a peasant? The fact that she missed seeing the look of pleasure in his bright blue eyes and even the way his rough speech was improving was neither here nor there. She was gentry and quality, and above such bad manners. What could you expect from a simple clodhopper? The thought of not riding Mercury over the hills did not bear thinking about, but Aunt Lydia promised that they would visit the shops and buy some new dresses. A whole new life was opening up and she ought to be delighted. The fact that she was not puzzled her.