The Two Farms: A moving family saga set in a Victorian farming community Read online

John Sutton, across the valley, could see how bad things were at Godsakes and one afternoon he rode over, coming straight into the field where Riddler was flattening mole-hills.

  ‘It’s two years since you bought this farm and if you’ve got any sense you’ll admit that you’re just about done for. I don’t care to see a good farm going to ruin like this and I am willing to pay you exactly the sum you gave for it. No one else would pay you that. Not in the state it’s in today. So why not sell out to me before you’re dragged down deeper still?’

  Riddler, in shirtsleeves, a heavy mattock in his hands, looked up at Sutton on his horse and gave a deep-throated growl.

  ‘Get off my land,’ he said savagely.

  Later, at tea with his family, he talked about Sutton’s visit.

  ‘My father slaved all his life, scraping enough money together to take this farm for himself and me. He loved this place … The valley, the hills, the meadows down there and the Timmy Brook. He slaved his guts out to get this land and I’m damned if I’ll ever let it go.’

  ‘We are still slaving,’ Agnes said, ‘and where will it get us in the end?’

  ‘Things’ll get better, you’ll see. I’ve been making a lot of mistakes and that loan is putting a strain on us. We’ve had bad luck these past two years but things will pick up for us from now on. I promise you that.’

  ‘Why not sell while the price is still good? Sutton means to have this place and he will do sooner or later, I’m sure, being the kind of man he is.’

  ‘Is that all you can say to me? Is that your way of cheering me up?’ Riddler’s voice, always loud, now rose to an angry shout. ‘Christ Almighty!’ he exclaimed. ‘Things’ve come to a pretty pass when my own wife wants to do me down. You talk about slaving? Hell’s bells! At least you slept in your bed last night! I didn’t. Oh, no, not me! I was up with a sick cow ‒’

  ‘Please don’t shout at me,’ Agnes said. ‘I know how hard you have to work.’

  Riddler fell silent, staring at her, his anger gradually dying down. Then, as he spooned buttered beans into his mouth, he turned to look at his two children.

  ‘Mother works hard, too,’ Kirren said.

  ‘Yes, I know she does,’ Riddler said.

  ‘She works just as hard as you ever do. You’ve got no right to shout at her.’

  ‘All right, all right, that’s enough,’ Riddler said.

  Kirren, although she was only eight, always had more to say for herself than her brother, Eddy, who was twelve. And often when she looked at her father, her eyes were darkly hostile.

  ‘Mother isn’t well,’ she said. ‘You ought not to make her work so hard.’

  ‘Not well? Not well? Who says she’s not well?’

  ‘Mrs Lovell and Mrs Smith.’

  ‘Kirren, be quiet,’ Agnes said.

  ‘What’s this about you not being well?’

  ‘Nothing, Morris. Nothing at all. I get a bit tired sometimes, that’s all, and I worry about you working so hard. That’s why I thought if you gave up the farm ‒’

  ‘I’m not giving up and that’s flat!’ Riddler said. ‘Neither John Sutton nor anyone else is taking this farm away from me and you’d better make up your mind to it!’

  Outside in the foldyard afterwards Riddler talked to his young son.

  ‘Women are different from us, somehow. They don’t seem to see things the same way at all. But you understand, don’t you, boy? You wouldn’t want me to let the farm go any more than I would myself?’

  ‘No, Father,’ Eddy said, ‘especially not to Mr Sutton, after what he did to you.’

  Riddler was much moved by this. He gripped Eddy’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

  ‘Sutton won’t have it, I’ll see to that. I swear to it by Almighty God. I’m going to make a few changes here, get things back on an even keel. I only need a bit of luck and now that you are leaving school and will be doing a full day’s work ‒’

  ‘I shall work hard, Father, cross my heart.’

  ‘I know you will. I know it fine. You’re worth two of Lovell and Smith and if we put our backs into it we shall soon pull the place up, shan’t we, eh? Oh, we shall show them a thing or two, you and me! We’ll make them sit up. We shall, that’s a fact!’

  Riddler’s son was his pride and joy; his hope for the future; his bright star. He saw the boy as a young man ‒ clever, determined, vigorous, strong. Eddy had qualities he himself lacked and in a few years’ time he would be making the old place hum. Riddler saw it as plain as glass and the happy vision made him smile.

  But this dream, like so many others, was to be most cruelly shattered, for that winter an epidemic of influenza swept through Gloucestershire, and Riddler’s family went down with it. His wife and daughter soon recovered but Eddy developed pneumonia and in three weeks he was dead.

  Riddler was beside himself with grief. For days he hardly spoke at all but went about his work in an anguished trance. Often he failed to come in for his meals and Agnes would have to go out to him and plead with him to come in and eat. Once she found him in tears in the barn and when she touched him on the shoulder he burst out at her in a terrible howl:

  ‘Why did it have to be the boy that died?’

  Agnes turned and left him and outside in the yard came upon her daughter, Kirren, standing like a small statue, an empty bucket in each hand. The child’s face was pale and stiff. Agnes saw that she had heard.

  ‘Your father is not himself,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying. We must both try to be patient with him.’

  Kirren said not a single word; only stared at her mother with darkened eyes and then, with the ghost of a shrug, turned away towards the pump.

  Chapter Two

  John Sutton was a widower, his wife having died in 1832, giving birth to their only child, a son named Philip. Sometimes Sutton worried about this son of his, brought up in a household run by an elderly housekeeper without other children for company, but in the winter of 1844 this problem unexpectedly solved itself.

  The weather was bad in December and one black wet night just after Christmas a drover driving a large flock of sheep through the valley stopped at Peele asking if he could sleep in a barn and leave his flock to graze in the meadows before moving on in the morning. The bailiff, Warren Oakley, gave permission, but he never learnt the man’s name, nor did he see his face clearly, and in the morning, before it grew light, the drover and his flock had gone.

  Nothing more was thought of it then; the man had given no trouble whatever; but three days after he had gone a small boy in ragged clothes was caught stealing turnips from a field and told the bailiff that his uncle, the drover, had left him behind deliberately, telling him to lie low and not leave the barn for two or three days. Oakley brought the boy to the house and John Sutton questioned him.

  ‘Do you mean to tell me that you’ve been in the barn since Thursday night?’

  The boy gave a nod.

  ‘Weren’t you cold?’

  Another nod.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Jim,’ the boy said, and gave a small, husky cough, partly from fear and partly from cold.

  ‘Jim what?’ Sutton asked.

  This time the boy shook his head.

  ‘Well, then, what is your uncle’s name?’

  Yet another shake of the head.

  ‘Do you mean you don’t know or have you been told not to tell?’

  ‘Uncle said not to tell. He said he’d put a curse on me and if I told I should fall down dead.’

  ‘What else did your uncle say?’

  ‘He said for me to stop in the barn and keep out of sight for two or three days. Then to go to the nearest workhouse and ask for them to take me in.’

  ‘Have you no parents?’

  ‘No. They’re dead.’

  ‘Where was your home before they died?’

  ‘I don’t remember. It’s too far back.’

  The boy was about ten years old, dirty, louse-ridden, dressed in rag
s, and with red scurfy sores on his face and neck. He also had a large bruise just below his left eye and a smaller bruise on his upper lip.

  ‘Did your uncle do that to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does he often beat you?’

  ‘Yes, when he’s drunk. He doesn’t like me. He says I smell.’

  ‘And whose fault is that, I’d like to know? Why, if I had that blackguard here now ‒’

  Sutton was fond of children and the boy’s condition angered him. He turned towards the farm bailiff.

  ‘All right, Oakley, you can go. I’ll keep the boy here for a day or two while I decide what to do with him. Come along with me, Jim, and we’ll see if Mrs Abelard can find you something better to eat than a raw turnip out of the field.’

  The housekeeper was none too pleased at having a dirty, verminous child presented to her in her clean kitchen and she told Sutton so in vigorous terms.

  ‘The boy is starving,’ Sutton said. ‘Give him some good hot food to eat, then get him washed and into clean clothes.’

  ‘What clean clothes?’ Mrs Abelard asked. ‘Has he brought his valise with him?’

  ‘Some old clothes of Philip’s, of course, what else?’

  ‘And what shall I do with him after that?’

  ‘Philip will be back by then. He’s gone for a ride with Charlie Clements. He can take young Jim under his wing.’

  ‘Do you mean he’s to stop in the house? Sleep in one of our nice clean beds?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Why shouldn’t he?’

  ‘And how long for?’ Mrs Abelard asked, scandalized at the prospect.

  ‘As to that, I have no idea. We shall just have to see,’ Sutton said.

  By the time Philip came in Jim had been so thoroughly scrubbed that his fair skin glowed as though lit from within, and, dressed in borrowed velveteens, with his fair hair brushed smoothly down, looked presentable enough, though Philip made a face of distaste at sight of the red sores on his skin.

  ‘What’s that? Is it leprosy?’

  ‘Of course it isn’t,’ Mrs Abelard said. ‘Soap and water will cure that ‒ if he stops in this house long enough.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Jim, he says.’

  ‘Where has he come from? Why is he here?’

  ‘Don’t ask me!’ Mrs Abelard said. ‘Ask your father, standing there.’

  John Sutton told Jim’s story to his son. ‘He’s going to stay with us at present, while I make certain enquiries and see if his uncle can be traced. But unless young Jim agrees to tell us his name I don’t hold out much hope. At present he refuses to say.’

  ‘Refuses to tell us his name?’ Philip said. ‘Hah! I’ll soon get it out of him!’

  ‘Yes, well, maybe you will. Take him out with you, anyway, and show him the farm. Take him to see that new pony of yours. He’ll like that, won’t you, Jim?’

  The two boys went out together and were gone until darkness fell. They then returned to the house and had tea with Mrs Abelard and the maid, Alice, at the kitchen table in front of the fire.

  ‘Well, then, Master Philip, did you get him to tell you his name?’

  ‘No, not yet, but I will!’ Philip said.

  During the next three weeks the boys were together a great deal, mostly out and about in the fields, for the farm stock, especially the sheep, drew Jim like a magnet. And Philip, during this time, would question him repeatedly, trying to make him reveal his name.

  ‘Is it Smith? Is it Brown? Is it Murgatroyd?’

  Jim only shook his head but the name Murgatroyd made him smile.

  ‘That’s it! That’s it!’ Philip cried. ‘His name is Murgatroyd! I know it is!’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘My uncle told me not to tell.’

  ‘Well, you’re not going to be called Sutton, so there, and you needn’t think it!’ Philip said.

  One day when Jim was out with the flock, talking to the shepherd, George Abelard, Philip came running up the field in a state of great excitement.

  ‘Jim! You’re wanted up at the house. It seems your uncle has come back for you.’

  Jim’s face went dreadfully white and he stood as though turned to stone. Then, suddenly, Philip laughed.

  ‘I was only teasing you! Lord, if you could’ve seen your face! I gave you a rare old fright, didn’t I? You looked about as sick as a dog!’

  The old shepherd, George Abelard, looked at Philip reprovingly. ‘You shouldn’t do things like that, Master Philip. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘It was only a joke,’ Philip said. ‘He shouldn’t have let himself be taken in.’

  And, seizing hold of Jim’s arm, he was soon urging him to leave Abelard and the flock to go ratting with the groom and the dogs.

  After three weeks at Peele Jim was scarcely the same boy that Oakley had collared in the turnip field. The bruises and sores had vanished completely, leaving his skin a clear healthy pink, and his straight, fair, almost colourless hair, washed every day by Mrs Abelard, was now as smooth and fine as silk. He was also filling out; the pinched look had gone from his face and flesh was beginning to cover his bones. His eyes, too, these days, were a brighter blue and often twinkled with merriment.

  ‘All thanks to you, Mrs Abelard, and the trouble you’ve taken with him,’ Sutton said. ‘But what are we going to do with him when Philip starts going to his lessons again?’

  ‘You said you were going to make enquiries and see about finding that uncle of his.’

  ‘What enquiries am I to make? Where should I start? You just tell me that! We neither know what the man is called, nor what he looks like, nor where he’s from. Jim’s accent is a mystery. It tells us just about nothing. And even if we found the man, would you hand the boy over to him, knowing what a brute he is and how Jim has suffered at his hands?’

  ‘No, I would not,’ Mrs Abelard said. ‘The bruises he had when he came here ‒’

  ‘Exactly so, Mrs Abelard, and therefore it seems to me that Jim had better stay with us and go with Philip to the vicarage for the parson to teach him to read and write. How would you like that, young man? Would it suit you, do you think?’

  Jim gave a nod.

  ‘He nods to everything, this boy, except when he shakes his head,’ Sutton said. He turned to his son. ‘What do you think of my idea, that we should keep Jim with us?’

  ‘I thought we were going to, anyway.’

  ‘Glad to have a brother, eh?’

  ‘No, not a brother,’ Philip said.

  ‘What, then?’ Sutton asked.

  Philip gave a little shrug. ‘Jim can be my servant,’ he said.

  Sutton, laughing, turned back to Jim.

  ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘And do you agree to it?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Jim’s eyes were very blue and the jut of his chin as he looked up at Sutton showed that he had a will of his own. ‘I want to work on the farm,’ he said.

  ‘Well, and so you shall, my boy. When you are old enough, that is. But first a little schooling, I think, to give you a good start in life. I’ll see Parson Bannister in the morning on my way into town.’

  So every day Jim went with Philip in the dog-cart to the vicarage at Lyall St Mary’s where Mr Bannister, primed by Sutton, took his education in hand.

  ‘What am I to teach the boy?’ the vicar had asked, somewhat wearily.

  ‘The three “R”s,’ Sutton had said, ‘and whatever else he wants to learn.’

  Jim was very happy at Peele and his only anxiety was that his uncle might come back for him.

  ‘Now why should he do that,’ Mrs Abelard asked him, ‘when you say he wanted to be rid of you?’

  ‘He could change his mind, couldn’t he?’

  ‘But he doesn’t know you’re here with us. He’ll think you’re in the workhouse by now. And if by chance the brute did come here, why, he’d get my rolling
-pin over his head!’

  Jim was able to laugh at this; indeed he was laughing quite often now; and as the happy months went by, bringing a sense of security, his fears gradually died away until they became a thing of the past. And with the passing of his fears, he at last revealed his name.

  ‘Jim Lundy?’ Philip laughed. ‘No wonder you kept it secret so long. It’s almost as bad as Murgatroyd.’

  ‘Oh no it isn’t!’

  ‘It is!’

  ‘It’s not!’

  ‘And where did you come from?’ Sutton asked. ‘What part of the country were you raised?’

  ‘I don’t know. All over the place.’

  ‘Don’t you remember your parents, boy?’

  ‘No, they died when I was small.’

  ‘And then your uncle took charge of you?’

  ‘No, it was my grannie at first. We lived in a place near the sea ‒ my grannie called it Derry Coomb. Then my grannie got ill and died. Uncle Albert came for me ‒ he was the drover. We moved about. He didn’t like to stay in one place. We came up here from Salisbury Plain. Before that we were on the downs. And before that …’ Jim spread his hands. ‘Before that we were everywhere.’

  ‘So! You’re Jim Lundy from everywhere, or nowhere, whichever you please.’

  Sutton eyed the boy searchingly, wondering if the story was true, but so far during his six months at Peele, Jim had never once told a lie, even to get himself out of trouble, and Sutton was inclined to believe him now.

  ‘Anyway, true or not, it doesn’t much matter, does it?’ he said, speaking to the housekeeper afterwards. ‘It’s all worked out pretty well on the whole and Jim is adapting admirably. It’s good for Philip to have another boy to play with and he seems to like Jim well enough, allowing for boyish squabbles, of course.’

  ‘What young Master Philip likes is having someone to boss about and lead into mischief at every turn. That’s what Master Philip likes.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ Sutton said, ‘you’re only young once, Mrs Abelard.’

  Certainly the boys got into mischief, what with bringing hedgehogs into the house and putting a number of tiny elvers into Alice’s chamber-pot; and certainly, more often than not, it was Jim who owned up to these pranks while Philip denied all knowledge of them. They got up to mischief on the farm, too, and once they wedged a sack full of sheep-raddle over the half-open door of a shed, so that when the door was opened wide the raddle fell on the person below. This happened to be Warren Oakley and he, always lacking in humour, especially where boys were concerned, complained angrily to John Sutton.