Eppie (16 page)

Wakelin glowered.  ‘I din’t do no such thing.’

‘Temper, temper. The fact that you are here, revelling in
the entertainment, instead of cropping, leads me to surmise that Mr Strutt has
taken my advice and cancelled your indentures. Sensible man.’

Their backs to Eppie, the hangman and the fishmonger stood
at the rear of the scaffold, arguing the price of a memento. Filled with an
overwhelming wave of pity for the boy, she climbed onto the platform and crept
towards him. Titcher’s eyes glistened, lending to him the impression that he
was staring in the direction of Wakelin and Thurstan, listening to their
squabble which, to Eppie, seemed trivial compared to what Titcher had suffered.
Desperate that the boy should not go to hell for his theft, she fetched out her
crooked farthing and popped it into his pocket. ‘That’s for luck, to get you
through the Gates of Heaven.’    

Resting his hand on Wakelin’s shoulder, Thurstan spoke in a
mild tone, as to a child.  ‘Oderint dum metuant.’

Wakelin shrugged away Thurstan’s hand. ‘Stuff yer Latin
drivel.’

‘You not being an educated man, as I am informed by Mr
Strutt, will not know that those words mean Let them hate, provided they fear. Education
is a splendid thing, would you not concur? It emboldens power over the common
herd.’

‘I hate you,’ Wakelin spat out. 

‘Tut, tut. Where is your dignity? Your repose?’

Eppie knew Titcher was dead. Already his face had a
translucent sheen. But she was consumed by the idea that the rope was hurting
him. His face exhibited a haunting grimace from his death pains. At least she
could do something to make him look peaceful.

‘I am sorry to break up our
delightful meeting,’ Thurstan said. ‘My talents are required elsewhere. Mr
Melchoir, the chief magistrate, requests my advice on pressing matters. Matters
of life or, more satisfactorily, death. By the way, my churlish fellow, I
should keep an eye on your giddy sister. She seems intent on reviving the
dead.’

Spinning round, Wakelin saw
Eppie tugging at the noose. ‘What ya doing?’

‘He can’t speak!’ she cried in anguish. ‘He don’t want this
on.’

‘He’s dead!’ Wakelin screamed into her face.

‘You never understand!’   

The hangman pocketed his coin. ‘Here, what’s going on? No
money, no token.’

‘We don’t want nowt!’ Wakelin jerked Eppie off the scaffold.

‘Ow! You’ve hurt my wobbly tooth!’

He vent upon her the pent up fury he felt towards Thurstan. ‘Yur,
an’ I’ll hurt ya even more. You’re nowt but a rattle-dull, like ‘em. You hear?’
Forcing a thumb stump into her mouth, he gave his wrist a sharp twist.

Eppie squirmed from the piercing pain.   

Before he could hurt her again she sped away, gulping back
the gush of sickly blood. 

Reuben shook his head at the sight of Eppie’s bruised lips
and blood speckled down her frock. ‘That hanging weren’t a sight for a maid. In
any case, I spotted several pickpockets at work in the crowd, stealing stuff
worth more than a silver spoon.’

Though distraught by the incident, Eppie would not blame
Wakelin. She had simply told Martha, when she asked what had happened, ‘I
tripped and went ploughing on my face. My tooth ain’t there no more. I must’ve
swallowed it. Now the faeries won’t come.’

‘Gillow was expecting Wakelin to become a master cropper and
keep us in our old age,’ Martha fretted. ‘There’ll be no peace now.’

Gillow stormed indoors, his face
screwed up with rage.  ‘I’ll wring his ears!’

Martha and Eppie were dipping dried apple rings in batter.
‘Whose?’ they asked in surprised chorus.

‘I’m sick to death of him. After all my work, all the effort
I’ve put in.’

‘What’s up, Pa?’

Gillow shook his fist at Eppie as though it were her fault.
‘I’ll tell you what’s up. He’s eaten half my wintergreens. Bounded off as I
crept up on him.’

Martha had become accustomed to her husband’s short temper
since Wakelin had lost his apprenticeship a year ago. ‘Don’t take your anger
out on Eppie.’

‘It’s time I did something about the enemy,’ Gillow said. ‘Something
final.’

Martha was keen to have a respite from his ranting. ‘Let’s
gather them sloes, Eppie.’

Eppie set to, picking from the tree beside the cart gate.
Tom strolled up with his dogs. Wasp, a murky-brown terrier, swaggered into the
garden, growling so ferociously that Eppie was relieved she stood on top of the
stepladder.

Tom grasped Wasp by the scruff. ‘Sorry about him, Mrs Dunham.’ 

Wakelin emerged from the cottage and sauntered off with Tom.

‘No more rabbiting near the manor,’ Gillow hollered.
‘Remember du Quesne’s rule.’

Wakelin threw the fowling gun upon his shoulder and fired at
a flapping pigeon. ‘When I bring back your culprit make sure you’ve gorra
plateful of greens for his dinner.’ 

‘He thinks he’s funny.’ Irritably, Gillow plunged his spade
into the soil. ‘Now look what the nincompoop’s made me do!  I’ve gashed my
prize beetroot.’

 Raising her eyebrows, Martha cast Eppie a look that showed
her mixed feelings of frustration and amusement. Both restrained giggles. 

‘Is this enough?’ Eppie asked.

‘That’ll be fine with my lot. Once the frost has nipped the
rosehips we’ll bottle the syrup.’

Seeing Gillow hammering an iron stake deep in the earth,
Eppie asked, ‘What ya doing?’

‘What does it look like? I’m making a wire noose for that
rabbit. If he gets it into his brain to dine on the rest of my greens, he’s in
for a surprise.’

‘I don’t think snares are nice. I’m sure God doesn’t mind
Mister Rabbit having just one or two of your leaves.’

‘I agree,’ Martha said. ‘When I was little, your Gramps took
me into the woods. He sometimes did a bit of poaching. We came upon a trap that
had a deer’s foot in it. Gramps said it had gnawed off its hoof to escape.’

‘Have you two nothing better to do than stand there chirruping
on?’ Gillow asked.

‘I get the feeling we’re not wanted here,’ Martha said,
smiling.

She fetched a crock from the dresser. ‘After you’ve pricked
those sloes you can put them in here.’ 

Methodically, Eppie spiked the blue-skinned fruit, and set
to with the pestle, pummelling sugar lumps.

Martha poured warmed gin over the fruit, tied a cloth on top,
and lugged the vessel to the larder. ‘Come Christmas, I’ll strain off the
liquid. You can have the messy job of stoning the fruit.’

‘Cooee, is it safe to come in?’ Betsy cried. ‘I heard shouting
and thought it best to lie low a while.’

‘Pa’s mad with a rabbit for munching his greens.’

‘It never fails to amaze me how grown men get worked up
about one rogue rabbit. My late husband was the same. I’ve finished sewing this
for you, Eppie.’

‘How lovely!’ She pranced around with the yellow,
ribbon-trimmed frock.

‘I’ve been collecting oddments.’ Onto the table Betsy tipped
snippets of fabric, a chopped-off lace collar and brass buttons imprinted with
the design of a galleon. ‘You could make a rag doll and stuff it with the
cut-offs from your father’s weaving, and carding fluff.’

Eppie’s eyes shone, her mind
filled with delightful images. ‘These frills will look beautiful on sleeves. I’ll
cut the royal blue cotton into a tailcoat.’

At dawn, a couple of days later, Eppie ambled through the backyard
on her way to Shivering Falls.  Beside the pigsty grew the whip of a tree.

‘That oak I planted from an acorn is almost as high as my
knees,’ she said proudly.

‘It’s done well,’ Martha said, ‘though I don’t think that’s the
best place to have planted it.’

Gabriel waited for Eppie in the clearing before the Crusader
Oak.

Gutted fish smoked on a hazel wand rack. 

As they ate, Eppie thought about her thrummy doll’s new
clothes and longed, somewhat guiltily, to snip material off Gabriel’s
olive-green jacket, and pinch a couple of his gold buttons.  

The meal over, he kicked the cooling embers. ‘Yesterday, at
dinner, my father and Thurstan decided that villagers will no longer be allowed
to gather fallen branches for firewood from Copper Piece Wood. Father wants all
the fuel for the manor.’

‘Mam won’t be pleased.’

They tramped back to the waterfall.

‘After the church concert, mother and I are going to Bath
for the winter to stay with my aunt. Bath is an excellent place for invalids
like mother. She benefits from the curative powers of its hot springs. She’s
content with her sister, away from father.’

‘Why does she hate your father?’

‘Because of the harsh way he treated Talia. And the fact
that father hates mother. On the night of Genevieve’s birth, mother was in the
lying-in room. I’ll never forget her screams of pain. Later, she told me she’d
overhead father tell Doctor Burndread that, if it was a choice between her and
the baby, he was to let mother die. She’s never forgiven him for his heartless
words.’

‘I don’t blame her.’

‘Ah, just the person,’ Gillow said, seeing Eppie hop across
the stepping stones in the stream. He tore open a bean pod and dropped the
seeds into a rag bag, storing them for next year. ‘I was throwing foliage from
these beans onto the rot heap, and guess what I found?’

‘What?’ She expected to hear something fascinating.

‘Diseased potato leaves.’

‘Oh.’ She guessed she was in for a telling-off.  ‘I saw them
on the ground after you’d dug the ‘taties. You’re always shouting at Wakelin
for not helping, so I thought you’d be glad if I did some work.’

‘They were from bad potatoes. You should never put anything
diseased onto the heap. It’ll poison the lot. Then where will we be? Before we
know it all the vegetables will be dead.’

‘I was only trying to help.’

‘Well, don’t do it again.’

‘I won’t,’ she answered gloomily.

Smoke curled from the bonfire.

‘Where’s my oak?’

‘Your what?’ he asked gruffly, not looking up from podding.

‘Where is it, Pa? My baby oak?’

He tossed stringy roots onto the fire.  ‘How should I know?’

‘It was here.’ Frantic, she pointed.

‘There was only rubbish there. Now we’ve lost the common I
need to extend my plot to grow more fodder for the animals.’

Her face was hot with anguish. 
‘It wasn’t rubbish!  It was my little tree.’

    Gillow trudged in for something
to eat. ‘Where’s Eppie?’

‘In the loft, sobbing bucketfuls,’ Martha answered. ‘She
says you’ve burnt her tree.’

Slumped upon weaving sacks, Eppie forced herself to stop
crying and listen.

‘She’s blubbering about nothing,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘What
does one tree matter?  They’re everywhere you look.’

‘It was her special tree.  She loved it.’

‘I am sick to death of this bickering. Sick. Do you hear?
She’s getting as bad as her brother.’

Martha scraped the frying pan. ‘Eppie! It’s your favourite:
cheese and egg fritters.’

‘You mustn’t give in to her stubborn nature, her hysterics,’
Gillow said.

‘Don’t be silly. She’s only a child.’

‘She will not make a fit wife for any decent man if you
allow her to run wild, letting her have her own way all the time.’

‘She doesn’t have her way all the time.’

He slammed his fist on the table. ‘She has to learn her proper
role in life.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘Servitude. Women are only placed on this earth to help
men.’ 

Martha shot him a look that could kill.

He pointed a knife at her. ‘Don’t
ever
glare at me
like that. Sit and eat. Let hers go cold.’

Dutifully, she settled opposite him. Eppie wept afresh. ‘She’s
crying again. I’ll have to see to her.’ She made to quit the table.

‘Leave her be, you obstinate woman!’

Eppie scrubbed away her tears and glared at Gillow through
the loft access. ‘Why do
you
always have to make the rules? Why should women
always have to serve men?  Sometimes you talk to mam as though she were a
slave.’

Eyes bulging, he thumped up the steps. ‘And what, my little
maid, would you know about slavery, or anything, come to that?’

Never before had she felt such strong emotion raging in her.
‘I know that in America a master will put a sharp iron spur into a slave’s
mouth, or chop off half a slave’s foot. You’re not that bad to mam, but you
could talk nicer to her.’

There was a moment’s silence whilst he glared at Eppie. Gradually,
his features softened. Drawing in a deep breath, he turned to his wife. ‘Forgive
me, Martha. I guess I’m still upset about the loss of my beetroot. I sometimes let
my anger get the better of me.’

Wakelin strode in. ‘’ere’s yer villain!’ In his upheld hand
swung a dead rabbit, alongside three pigeons. Dispirited, Twiss plodded in, tongue
lolling. 

Eppie stared at the top of Wakelin’s spiky fair hair and at the
dirt trailed indoors from his mud-plastered boots.

His mouth full of fritter, Gillow garbled, ‘Thar’s not ‘im.
Too young an’ skinny.’

Wakelin was unperturbed. ‘Never mind. He’ll make good
eating. Guess what! Wasp bit Spurt’s neck when they fought over the rabbit. When
Tom went to drag Wasp away, he took a chunk outta his hand.  Tom’s gonna hang
him in the barn.’

The following morning, absorbed with
thoughts about her scheme to make a costume from Betsy’s left-overs for her
stuffed rabbit pelt, Eppie set off with the pigs, to let them guzzle acorns in
Copper Piece Wood.     

‘Come and take a look at this ‘un,’ Jacob hailed her. ‘Your
father and I have a competition each year to see who can grow the biggest
vegetable.’ He knew she knew, but liked to remind her. It made the occasion
special. ‘This year it’s the beefiest beetroot. We’re taking them to The Duck
tonight. There’s a tankard of ale for the winner.’