Notwithstanding: Stories From an English Village Read online

  Since Froggy’s day he had walked that hill and lain in the bracken with other lovers, and had come to see that places are only precious because of the ways in which one has loved there. There was a sandpit near Sweetwater where he used to sit and write love poems to Froggy and those who came after, always, it seemed, accompanied by a patient collie. Near the Hurst there was a small woody glade of bluebells and kingcups between two ditches, which became at first the site of future solitary romantic misery and, later on, an enchanted place to take a rug and make love on the moss in dappled light.

  Certain locations have the ability to retain the emotions of generation upon generation, until they begin to exude them like the resin that forces itself out of the veins of a pine. On Maclachlan’s bench at the top of Busses Common, in sight of Blackdown and Chanctonbury Ring, Peter would always think that others must have been able to feel what had happened to him. It was the natural place for rendezvous, and since Peter and Froggy’s youth there had been any number of lovelorn village teenagers who had ineptly failed to meet there.

  THE DEVIL AND BESSIE MAUNDERFIELD

  AT SIXTEEN, BESSIE Maunderfield was petite, vivacious, ingenious and undeferential. Despite these disqualifications, she obtained employment at the manor house, not least because she was related to both the cook and the groom, and her mother had been a childhood friend of the housekeeper. Naturally, it was envisaged that she would leave the job as soon as she married, but for the time being she arose at six, and, whatever the weather, put on her pattens, and clumped a muddy two miles along the Chiddingfold Road that ran through the Hurst. If she was lucky, there might be a lift to be had on a cart, but it was no quicker than walking. If it rained, she held a tray over her head to protect her black curls, and, if the worst came to the worst, she had a canvas cape that was well smeared with pork lard. The cape was the invention of an uncle who had served with the West Surreys, and seen something like it being used by fishermen in a foreign land where he had been on campaign. It was very effective, but it smelled dreadful, so the housekeeper would make her hang it up on a nail in the stable.

  It was of course traditional for the sons of squires to fall in love with serving maids. The sons of squires frequently found themselves unattracted to the women of their own class, since there is a limit to the amount of time one can listen to halting renditions on the piano in between discussion of one’s mutual acquaintance. The sons of squires usually did eventually fall for one of them, or become resigned to one, but they married with very little expectation of pleasure, and indeed, very little pleasure did they receive. They took to staying out as much as possible, or, if the house was a very large one, contriving to find themselves always at the opposite end of it. For the son of a squire a serving maid seemed like a cheerful and affectionate creature who might have been prim and virtuous in her own way, but seldom became a prig before the age of thirty.

  For the maid, the squire’s son was a thrilling creature, quite unlike the young men of her own class, who were given to slumping in front of the fire with pipes and jugs of ale that gave them halitosis, hawking gobbets of phlegm into the cinders for the pleasure of seeing them sizzle, and whose conversation was mainly about the weather. The squire’s son rode a beautiful shiny big horse that gave him well-muscled thighs. He had elegantly cut clothes with more buttons than were useful, his top hat was tall and well brushed, and when he spoke he never grunted, but employed long sentences containing many unusual and lovely words. Best of all, until he married, he had high spirits and joyful eyes.

  Piers de Mandeville, however, was not the kind of squire’s son who assumed that a serving maid was his by right. He was a more democratic sort. He was naturally able to find more or less anyone interesting in some way or other, and understood that hearts should be protected. He particularly appreciated liveliness and intelligence wherever he found them.

  He found both on a day in early midsummer when he entered the withdrawing room one morning, with the intention of playing some airs on his violin. His fingers were neither fast nor dexterous, but he had a feel for the soul of a melody, and he was looking forward to playing through a collection of airs by James Hook, which had arrived the previous day by the hand of a cousin who had presently come down from Merton. It had occurred to him that at that time of day there should be no one to discommode in that particular room.

  Bessie Maunderfield was there, however, cleaning out the hearth on her second day of employment, and already regretting her sore knees. ‘Ah,’ said Piers de Mandeville when he saw her.

  She got to her feet and executed a little curtsy, saying, ‘Sir.’

  ‘You must be new,’ he said.

  ‘Started yesterday, sir,’ she said.

  ‘And what might be your name?’

  ‘Bessie Maunderfield, sir,’ she replied, ‘an’ it may please you, sir.’

  ‘Maunderfield? Of the Chiddingfold Maunder-fields?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, Bessie, I am Piers de Mandeville, and I regret to inform you that I am not the son and heir of this house. That honour belongs to my older brother, who is, as we speak, planting tea in a much hotter place where skins are darker, diseases even more foul and languages incomprehensible.’

  ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir, and I hope you will find my service satisfactory, sir,’ said Bessie, glancing up at his face and finding herself looking into a pair of humorous grey eyes.

  ‘I am sure I will,’ he replied. He paused, and added, ‘Did you know that the Maunderfields and the de Mandevilles are supposed to have been related, distantly, once upon a time? The origins of the name are the same, it seems.’

  ‘I did hear that, sir. People do commonly say it; they say that our side fell on hard times and your side never did, sir. They say it was because of our being greatly in the wrong cause in the Civil War, sir, and our house got terrible burned by fire setters.’

  ‘Well, Bessie, one day perhaps all will be reversed. The wheel of Fortune might spin and there you’ll have it – lo and behold! – a de Mandeville girl cleaning out the hearth of a Maunderfield as he scrapes on a fiddle in the withdrawing room of a great house in Chiddingfold.’

  ‘Well, I do hope not, sir.’

  ‘Really, Bessie? Why not? The thought should give you some satisfaction, should it not?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Bessie, ‘I wouldn’t wish cleaning hearths on anyone, sir. Hearths would clean themsen, sir, if it had anything to do with me. Now you must excuse me, sir, I have the parlour to do, and I wouldn’t be wanting the housekeeper to scold me.’

  ‘Not on your second day, certainly. Indeed, I do excuse you. I am sorry to have detained you with my chatter.’

  Bessie bobbed, glanced at him and hurried out with her copper bucket of ash. She set it down on the parlour floor, and clapped her hands together softly in a gentle gesture of delight. She smiled and kneeled to clean out the grating. In the withdrawing room Piers de Mandeville began to play through his James Hook with a light heart.

  Love being what it is, Piers de Mandeville contrived to run into Bessie quite often. The best pretext, he found, was to be looking for something that he had mislaid. It gave him a reason to be moving about the house somewhat randomly. He would greet her with ‘How now, my pretty distant cousin?’ or ‘How now, my distant pretty cousin?’ Bessie very quickly realised why he kept losing his possessions and was both flattered and frightened by turns. She could not deny that her heart seemed to flutter to her mouth every time that she saw him. He found himself in a similar condition, merely at the thought of her, and at night, the two of them, she on her palliasse in Chiddingfold, and he in his goose-down bed in Notwithstanding, would exhaust themselves as they slept, on account of the febrile longings and repetitive pretty dreams. It was not long before both of them saw quite clearly that an inevitable intimacy was developing.

  One day Piers de Mandeville turned up below stairs, upon a somewhat feeble excuse. Bessie teased him. ‘Now why would my ma
ster be looking for his timepiece in the scullery, when he never has any business there?’ to which he replied, ‘Sir Isaac Newton, of late philosophical memory and immortal renown, established it as a universal law of nature that lost objects gravitate inexorably towards places where they would least expect to be found. Objects, my pretty distant cousin, have a natural and innate perversity. In fact, it seems likely that for this reason objects must be feminine, even though, in the French language, merely half of them are.’

  ‘Could it be that the lost object is indeed of the female kind and that you were looking for a particular maid, sir, and a very likely place to find her might be in the scullery?’

  ‘I confess it. That is indeed the reason, and I am very glad to have chanced upon you.’ They stood looking at one another for a long moment, and then he found himself stroking her cheek gently with his hand. ‘How very sweet and lovely you are,’ he said quietly, adding, ‘my pretty distant cousin.’

  ‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ she said, removing his hand, ‘but you must be cautious, sir. Think of all the other servants coming in and out. It wouldn’t do to get caught now, would it?’

  ‘You’re quite right, Bessie, of course you are, but I think we need to talk about certain things, don’t you?’

  ‘I would say we do, sir.’

  ‘Where shall I see you?’

  Bessie Maunderfield thought quickly, and said, ‘This evening, sir, have your groom saddle your horse, and tell the family that you are riding to Chiddingfold.’

  ‘On what pretext, Bessie? What can I tell them?’

  ‘That’s for you to decide, sir. I shall be walking home, and you will pass me on your horse and turn into the Hurst, and if there is no one about, then I shall follow you in. The Hurst is full of hidden places, sir.’

  Somewhat in advance of the hunting season, Piers de Mandeville set off one evening to scout the Hurst for fox earths. He encountered his particular little vixen at a place near one of the ponds where, within living memory, Prince George of Denmark had got bogged down in his carriage on the way to Petworth, and the men of the village had gathered to disembog him. Checking that no one else was about, he dismounted, and together they walked into the wood, he leading his horse by the bridle. The latter was tied to a sapling of ash, and the couple spread his cape on the ground by a little stream, barely a pace wide, which in those days was populated by diminutive brown trout.

  They sat shoulder to shoulder, with their arms around their knees. ‘Do you love me, Bessie?’ he asked at length.

  ‘The question is, sir, do you love me?’

  ‘I asked first.’

  ‘My question is more urgent, sir.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘A maid has more to lose. A maid might lose her very self, a maid might be sore hobbled, but a gentleman might lose very little.’

  ‘Very well, then, I do love you. You know that I do. I can think of very little else but my pretty distant cousin. Does she love me, though? Is she tormented, as I am?’

  ‘But how is it possible? What can we do? I know you would never marry me, and I would never be a mistress.’

  ‘Are you saying that you love me, then?’

  ‘Oh sir, I am miserable with love.’

  ‘We shall be married then, Bessie. There is no other way.’

  ‘Don’t be goosey, sir. Your family would never accept it. I can just imagine your father roaring and your mother weeping. What a furore there would be. You know it.’

  ‘Yes, I know it. Even so, love makes all things possible.’

  ‘Only in fairy tales, sir. Here in this place everything depends upon who you are.’

  He fell silent, and finally said, ‘I will marry you. I have resolved upon it.’

  ‘You have yet to ask me, sir.’

  He got to one knee, and spread his arms wide. ‘Bessie Maunderfield, my pretty distant cousin, will you marry me?’

  ‘I will marry you on one condition.’

  ‘Oh Bessie, what is that?’

  ‘When we are married and in a public place, or at dinner before the servants, you must call me madam, just as your father does your mother.’

  ‘This is a very small condition, Bessie.’

  She shrugged and smiled. ‘I have always wanted to be addressed as madam.’

  ‘Then madam you shall be. Of course, under similar circumstances I shall expect you to call me sir.’

  She suddenly became deeply grave, and looked at him directly, as if searching his eyes for honesty. ‘Do you swear that we shall be married?’

  He tried to field the question lightly. ‘I swear by these trees, and the yellow kingcups, and the bluebells, and by my right hand, and even by His Majesty the King’s best gilded chamber pot.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh, now. I am serious. Do you swear that we shall be married? Do you swear it on the Holy Bible?’

  ‘I do. I swear it on the Holy Bible, and may the Devil have my soul if I don’t.’

  ‘You swear that the Devil may have your soul if you don’t?’

  ‘I do, Bessie, I do.’

  ‘Put your hand on your heart and say, “I Piers de Mandeville do solemnly swear that if I do not marry Bessie Maunderfield, then the Devil may have my soul.”’

  The squire’s son sighed, and lifted his eyebrows in humorous resignation. Nonetheless he put his right hand over his heart and swore the oath. ‘There,’ he added, ‘the deed is done. I am yours, or Beelzebub’s.’

  ‘Now you may kiss me, sir, if you please,’ said Bessie. Piers de Mandeville discovered that she kissed very sweetly indeed, and soon they were lying side by side on the cape, kissing with ever greater degrees of oblivion. De Mandeville’s mare watched them indifferently as she waited to go home to her stable.

  Their recklessness and ardour increased by the day, especially after a small room on the top floor of the house fell vacant owing to the departure of another servant. The housekeeper, wishing to spare Bessie her long trudges back and forth through the Hurst, allowed her the room, which was at the back of the house next to the top of a narrow flight of stairs. It was perfectly placed for a furtive liaison. They made love with his hand over her mouth as she bucked beneath him. Sometimes there was a full moon hanging in the window, filling the room with delirious silver light, and Piers de Mandeville and Bessie Maunderfield would lie crammed together on the narrow bed, confounded to find themselves in paradise, incredulous with happiness.

  Their liaison had been established for about six months, when four things happened in quick succession. Firstly the Rector died of an apoplexy brought on by becoming infuriated about politics when drunk on claret, leaving behind him no son to inherit the living. Secondly the new Rector arrived with three accomplished and charming daughters who were looking for husbands to match their station. Thirdly the Rector’s wife quickly discovered that there was an unmarried son in the manor house, and the fourth thing was that Bessie Maunderfield came to the inescapable conclusion that she was pregnant.

  Bessie said nothing for a month, frightened to tell her love, and believing that he would be angry with her. At St Mary’s Church on Sunday, beneath the stern gaze of Earl Winterton and his family in their own private gallery, she even begged God for a miscarriage. During that time she became ever more alarmed at the frequency of the visits from the Rector’s wife and her three marriageable daughters. They seemed to have an inexhaustible appetite for cakes, scones, tea and lively chatter, and it was quite plain to all that the eldest daughter was making specific efforts to be charming to Piers de Mandeville. She tossed her golden ringlets very fetchingly, praised his playing inordinately and listened wide-eyed to his opinions. When she passed by him, she brushed just a little closer than one ordinarily would, and he often caught the scent of lavender from her clothes. Emily Sutton went to the lengths of learning the fortepiano accompaniments to certain violin pieces that he had always wanted to play. Everyone who observed them also observed that they seemed a very well-matched pair. This thought w
as not lost on Piers de Mandeville, who now began to waver in his determination to marry Bessie Maunderfield.

  Not least among his worries had been that he had proved himself too cowardly to confess his intentions to his parents. Terrified of their rage, and equally terrified as to what would become of him, once disowned, he procrastinated daily, despite many bold resolutions to grasp the nettle.

  Bessie Maunderfield, entering and leaving the withdrawing room invisibly and discreetly as a servant must, could not help but notice what was happening, and she quickly became desperate. She foresaw fatal chasms opening up beneath her feet, a storm of recrimination and disgrace about her head. She was forced to tell her lover about the child.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked her repeatedly, as if there might be the slightest possibility that the swelling was an attack of colic.

  ‘You will marry me, won’t you?’ she asked him repeatedly, sick with anxiety and dread. ‘You will marry me before the little one comes?’

  ‘I will, I will,’ he promised, and she reminded him solemnly that he had vouched his soul to the Devil if he did not.

  He fell into such a state of agitation that he thought his heart would give way. It seemed to flutter in his chest like a panicked bird, and his concentration left him. He would pick up his violin, and then immediately lay it back in its case. He went out and walked at furious speed, taking the sandy paths on Busses Common as far as Sweetwater Lake, or tramping along Vann Lane all the way to Pockford Road, or down Malthouse Lane all the way to Brook, where he could take to his cups in the Dog and Pheasant, believing that no one there would know who he was. Ultimately, because of the difficulty of walking home inebriated in the dark, Piers de Mandeville began to ride there on his mare, knowing that she would find the way home without any instruction or intervention from him.

  Naturally, everyone knew within days that the squire’s second son was drinking and falling into bad company at the Dog and Pheasant. Bessie heard it from her cousin, the groom, and then she heard it again from her own sister who had heard it from the blacksmith’s wife in Sittinghurst.