ABOUT A HOUSE ON THE HIDDEN LANES
Thomasine was sitting in the stone kitchen of Town Rising sewing and trying to think; but the little skeletons of thought that did present themselves were like bad dreams. She had given notice to the Chegwiddens and would be leaving in a few days, not because she wanted to go, but because it had become necessary. Town Rising was a moral place, where nothing lower than drunkenness was permitted, and Thomasine was able to comprehend how much better it was to resign than to be turned out. Pendoggat had found a place for her, not a permanent one as he explained, a place where she would receive no wages, where indeed a premium would be required; there she would pay a certain debt to Nature, and then he would come and take her away.
Thomasine was making garments which she smuggled away when any one came to the door. They were ridiculous garments which she could not possibly have worn herself, but perhaps she was making doll's clothes for a charity bazaar, although girls like Thomasine are not usually interested in such things; or she might have been preparing a complete outfit for a certain little person who had benefited her. Pixies of the Tavy are famed for their generosity to servant maids who do their work properly; and the girls have been known to make garments for their benefactors, and spread them out in the kitchen before going to bed, so that the little person could put them on in the night. But the clothes, small though they were, would have been a few sizes too large for pixies, and somewhat too roomy for dolls. Thomasine seemed to be wasting her time and materials; and as a matter of fact she was, although she did not know it because she knew nothing, except that she was not particularly happy.
She was trying to think of matrimony while she sewed. All that she knew about it was that the clergyman mentioned a couple by name publicly three Sundays running, and then they went to church, the girl in her fair-clothes, and the man with a white tie which wouldn't fit his collar, and the clergyman read something which made the man grin and the girl respectable. Time was getting on, it was the dull month of February, and the burden of maternity seemed to be much nearer than the responsibilities of matrimony. Thomasine knew nothing of the place she was going into except that her duties would be light, merely to look after an old woman who would in return render her certain services at a critical time. She did not even know where the place was, for Pendoggat was not going to tell her until the last moment. She had seen young Pugsley the previous Sunday, in a hard hat and a suit of new clothes, the trousers turned up twice in order that a double portion of respectability might rest upon him, with close-cropped head, and a bundle of primroses pinned to his coat. He had stepped up, shaken her by the hand in a friendly way, and told her he was going to be married at Easter. He had got the promise of a cottage, and the ceremony would take place early on Easter Monday, and they were going for their honeymoon to St. Thomas's Fair. Thomasine went back crying, because Pugsley was a good sort of young fellow, and it seemed to her she had missed something, though it was not her fault. She had always wanted to be respectable Mrs. Pugsley, only she had been taken away from the young man, and told not to see him again, and farm-maids have to be obedient.
Thomasine spent the remainder of her time sewing when she was not occupied with household duties, and then the day came when she was to leave. One of the farm-hands drove her to the station, with her box in the cart behind, and her wages in her pocket. She knew by then where she was going; into the loneliness of mid-Devon. She would much rather have gone home, but that was impossible, for the pious cobbler, her father, would have taken her by the shoulders, placed her outside the door, and have turned the key upon her.
If a map be taken, and one leg of a compass placed on the village of Witheridge, the other leg may be extended to a circumference six miles distant, and a wide circle be swept without encountering a railway or cutting more than half-a-dozen good roads, and inside that circle there is not a single town. It is almost unexplored territory, there are no means of transit, and the inhabitants are rough and primitive. Distances there seem great, for the miles are very long ones, and when a call is made to some lonely house the visitor will often be pressed to stay the night, as he would be in Canada or Australia. The map is well sprinkled with names which suggest that the country is thickly populated, but it is not. Many of the names are delusions, more suggestive of the past than the present. A century ago hamlets occupied the sites now covered by a name, but there is nothing left of them to-day except dreary ruins of cob standing in a thicket of brambles or in what was once an apple-orchard. What was formerly the name of a good-sized village is now the title of a farm-house, or one small cottage which would not pay for repairing and must therefore be destroyed when it becomes uninhabitable. It is a sad land to wander through. It suggests a country at the end of its tether which has almost abandoned the struggle for existence, a poverty-stricken country which cannot face the strong-blooded flow of food importations from foreign lands. Even the goods sold in the village shops are of alien manufacture. A hundred little hamlets have given up the struggle in the same number of years, and been wiped, not off the map, but off the land. The country of Devon is like a rosy-cheeked apple which is rotten inside.
This region within the circle is densely wooded, and in parts fertile, though the soil is the heavy dun clay which is difficult to work. It is well-watered, and is only dying because there are no markets for its produce and no railways to carry it. It is a country of lanes, so narrow that only two persons can walk abreast along them, so dirty and ill-kept as to be almost impassable in winter, so dark that it is sometimes difficult to see, and so stuffy and filled with flies in hot weather that any open space comes as a relief. These lanes twist everywhere, and out of them branch more lanes of the same dirtiness and width; and if they are followed a gate is sure to be reached; and there, in a dark atmosphere, may be seen a low white house with a gloomy orchard on each side, and behind a wilderness of garden, and in front a court containing crumbling barns of cob and a foul pond; and on the other side of the court the lane goes on into more gloomy depths, towards some other dull and lonely dwelling-place in the rotten heart of Devon.
The country would be less sad without these dreary houses which suggest tragedies. Sometimes stories dealing with young women and very young girls reach the newspapers, but not often; the lanes are so dark and twisting, and the houses are so entirely hidden. It is possible to walk along the lanes for miles and to see no human beings; only the ruins of where they lived once, and the decaying houses where they live now. It is like walking through a country of the past.
Along one of these lanes Thomasine was taken in a rickety cart ploughing through glue-like mud, and at one of the gates she alighted. There had been a hamlet once where the brambles spread, and its name, which had become the name of the one small house remaining, was Ashland, though the map calls it something else. The tenant was an elderly woman who appeared to find the greatest difficulty in suiting herself with a servant, as she was changing them constantly. She was always having a fresh one, all young girls, and they invariably looked ill when they went away, which was a sure sign that the house was not healthy, and that Mrs. Fuzzey's temper was a vile one. The woman had no near neighbours, though there were, of course, people scattered round about, but they saw nothing suspicious in the coming and going of so many maids. No girl could be expected to stand more than a month or two of Mrs. Fuzzey and her lonely house, especially as some of the girls she engaged were rather smart and well dressed. No one suspected that the mistress of dark little Ashland of the hidden lanes was there solely in the way of business.
"How be ye, my dear?" said the lady in an amiable fashion to her new servant, client, or patient, or whatever she chose to regard her as, when the driver after his customary joke: "Here's one that will stop vor a month likely," had been dismissed. "You'm a lusty maid what won't give much trouble, I reckon. You'm safe enough wi' me, my dear. Seems you ha' come a bit early like. Well, most of 'em du. They get that scared of it showing. Not this month wi' yew, I reckon. Be it early next?"
"Ees," said Thomasine.
"Well, my dear, I'll be a proper mother to ye. 'Twill du ye good to get abroad a bit. Run out and pick up the eggs, and us will ha' tea. Yonder's the hen-roost."
Mrs. Fuzzey seemed a pleasant body, but it was all in the way of business. She was a stout woman, with a big florid face, and crisp black hair which suggested foreign extraction. She reared poultry successfully, and was quite broken-hearted when a young chicken met an evil fate and perished, which indicated the presence of a vein of tenderness somewhere, in the region of the pocket probably, as she was usually insensible to the suffering of human beings. Still she did not look the sort of woman who might reasonably be expected to end her life upon the scaffold, if success in business made her careless, or if any of her patrons or clients ventured to risk their own safety by giving information against her.
Thomasine was not accustomed to stately interiors and fine furniture, and yet she was astonished at the bareness of the interior of Ashland. Had everything in the place been put up to auction less than five pounds would possibly have bought the lot. There was nothing in the way of luxury, not an article that was unnecessary, except the curtains that hung across the windows for respectability's sake. It was not a home, but a place of business. The mistress had the sense to know she might require to leave in a hurry some day without being allowed time to pack anything, and she saw no advantage in investing her savings in furniture which she would have to leave behind.
The garden was at the back, a dark garden, shadowed and gloomy, like an Eastern cemetery. It made a sort of quadrangle, with the house at one end, a jungle-like coppice with bracken and bramble undergrowth at the other, and an orchard on each side; as an additional protection there was a stone hedge round the three sides. There was only one entry and that was from the house. There had been another, a gate leading in from one of the orchards, but Mrs. Fuzzey had closed it up. She did not want people trespassing in her garden.
Near the hedge at the back, and in front of the dense coppice, was an old well which had not been used for a long time as the water was supposed to be polluted. It had been practically closed up when Mrs. Fuzzey came into residence, but she had opened it for her own purposes. The water supply of the house came from a well in the court, which was fed either by a spring or by the river Yeo which passed close by. The old well was very deep and contained a good deal of water with a scum on it which fortunately could not be seen, and a smell to it which in hot weather became rather pronounced, as it had not been cleared out for ages and was filled with dead bodies of rats—and other things. But the miasma carried no distance, and there was nobody to complain about it except Mrs. Fuzzey, who didn't mind. Ashland was almost as much out of the way as a farm upon the back blocks of Australia. Nobody ever entered the garden except herself and her maid for the time being. It was in a land where the sanitary inspector ceases from troubling. She did her own gardening, planting her potatoes and onions, being a strong woman well able to wield a spade. She had piled a lot of rocks about the well and made quite a pleasant flower garden there. She was fond of flowers, and in the warm weather would take out a chair and sit beside the well, admiring the beauty of the various saxifrages, creepers, and trailing plants which her efforts had induced to grow. She called it the Grotto. She had penny novelettes sent her regularly, and would devour them greedily as she sat in her garden, being very much addicted to romance and sentiment when it was strong enough; and sometimes she thought it would be agreeable to retire from business and have a husband and family of her own. It was so very dull at Ashland though she was making money. There never had been a Mr. Fuzzey, although she always gave herself the courtesy title of Mrs.
Thomasine got on very well with Mrs. Fuzzey and almost liked her. The girl was taken round the garden and the Grotto was pointed out to her with pride, although there was nothing to be seen except wet rocks, sodden plants, and decayed woodwork; but she was informed it would be a place of great beauty in the spring. Indoors there was cleaning to be done, with cooking, dairy-work, and egg-packing. A tradesman's visit was rare, and when one did come it was on foot along the narrow muddy lane, his cart being left far behind at the corner of some road or bigger lane. The evenings would have been fearfully dreary had Mrs. Fuzzey been less entertaining. The lady made and drank sloe-gin in some quantity; and she gave Thomasine a taste for it, with the result that sometimes they laughed a good deal without apparent cause, and the elderly lady became sentimental and embraced Thomasine, and declared that she loved young women, which was natural enough seeing that she made her living out of them. Then she would read selected portions from her latest novelette and weep with emotion.
"If ever I come to change my business I'll write bukes," she said one night. "I'd like to sot down every day, and write about young volks making love. I feels cruel soft to think on't. Lord love ye, my dear, there bain't nothing like love. Volks may say what 'em likes, but 'tis the only thing worth living vor. I've never had none, my dear, and I'd like it cruel. You'm had plenty, I reckon. Most o' the maids what comes here ha' had a proper butiful plenty on't, and some of 'em ha' talked about it till my eyes was fair drapping. I cries easy," said Mrs. Fuzzey.
Thomasine admitted she had received her share, and rather more than she had wanted.
"Yew can't ha' tu much when it comes the way yew wants it," said the lady. "I'm wonderful fond o' these little bukes 'cause 'em gives yew the real thing. I can't abide 'em when they talks about butiful country, and moons a shining, and such like, but when they gets their arms around each other and starts smacking, then I sots down tight to 'en. I can tak' plenty o' that trade. Sets me all of a quiver it du. I ses to myself: 'Amelia'—that's me, my dear—'just think what some maids get and yew don't.' Then I starts crying, my dear. I be a cruel tender woman."
The conversation was entirely one-sided, because Thomasine had never learnt to talk.
"If ever I got to write one o' these, I'd mind what the maids ha' told me. I'd start wi' love, and I'd end wi' love. I'd ha' nought else. I'd set 'em kissing on the first line, and I'd end 'em, my dear, I'd end 'em proper, fair hugging, my dear," hiccupped Mrs. Fuzzey. The bottle of sloe-gin was getting low, and her spirits were proportionally high. She kissed Thomasine, breathed gin down her back, and lifted up her voice again—
"I loves maids, I du, I loves 'em proper. I loves children tu, innocent little children. I loves 'em all, 'cept when they scream, and then I can't abide 'em. I reckon, my dear, you wouldn't find a tenderer woman than me anywheres. I tells myself sometimes I be tu soft, but I can't help it, my dear."
The old swine slobbered over the girl, half-drunk and half-acting, giving her loud-sounding kisses; and Thomasine did not know that most of the girls who had been placed under Mrs. Fuzzey's protection had been used in the same way as long as they would stand it. People have many peculiar ways of easing the conscience; some confess to a priest, some perform charitable works; others, like Mrs. Fuzzey, assume they are rather too good, though they may be vile. The old harridan posed as a tender-hearted being in love with every living creature; and she had read so many ridiculous love-tales and wept over them, and drunk so many bottles of sloe-gin and wept over them, and listened with lamentations to so many amatory details from the young women who had placed themselves under her charge, that she had pretty well persuaded herself she was a paragon of loving-kindness. Thomasine thought she was; but then Thomasine knew nothing.
It was rare to see a human being cross the court in front of Ashland. If more than one person passed in a day it was a thing to talk about, and sometimes a whole week went by bringing nobody. The policeman who was supposed to patrol the district had possibly never heard of the place, and had he been told to go there would have wanted a guide. Ashland was more isolated at that time than most of the dead hamlets, because the two farm-houses that stood nearest were empty and dropping to pieces.
About half-a-mile beyond the court another dark little lane branched off, and presently it divided into two dark little lanes like rivers of mud flowing between deep banks. They were like the dark corridors of a haunted house; and one of them led to the dead hamlet of Black Hound, now one cob farm-house until lately occupied by Farmer Hookaway who had shot himself the previous autumn; and the other finished up at the dead hamlet of Yeast-beer, which was also one cob farm-house with the thatch sliding off its roof, and this had been tenanted by Farmer Venhay, who had not shot himself but had drowned his bankrupt body in the Yeo. It was a pretty neighbourhood in summer, for the foxgloves were gorgeous, so were the ferns, and the meadow-sweet, irises, ragged-robins and orchids in the marshy fields; but it was sad somehow. It wanted populating. There were too many ruins about, too many abandoned orchards overrun with brambles, too many jagged walls of cob which represented a name upon the map. Once upon a time the folk of Merry England had danced and revelled there. Their few descendants took life tragically, and sometimes put it off in the same way. There was no music for them to dance to.
The time passed quickly enough for Thomasine, too quickly because she was frightened. She quite understood why she had become Mrs. Fuzzey's assistant for the time being. She comprehended that it is the duty of every girl to remain respectable, and in a vague way she had grasped the code of morality as it is practised in certain places. It was necessary for girls in her condition to go away and hide themselves, either at home, if her parents would permit it, or if not in lodgings provided for the purpose. She would never be seen, and would not have the doctor, because it was not anything serious, generally measles, or a stubborn cold. When everything was over she could appear again, and get strong and well by taking outdoor exercise; and nobody ever knew what had happened, unless the child, which was always born dead, had been disposed of in a particularly clumsy fashion.
As time went on Mrs. Fuzzey became irritable. She said Thomasine would have to pay something extra if she was not quick about her business. Her own affairs were by no means prospering, as she had not received any applications to fill the position of general help when Thomasine had vacated it. The truth of the matter was, as she explained bitterly, girls in country districts were becoming enlightened and imbued with the immoral spirit of the towns, which displayed articles of convenience in the windows of shops professing to be hygienic and surgical drug stores. These things had penetrated to the country, and a knowledge of them had reached even the most out of the way districts. Every small chemist did a large back-room business in such things, and many a girl was taking the precaution of carrying one about in her handkerchief, or when going to church between the leaves of her prayer-book. Mrs. Fuzzey had no hesitation in denouncing the entire system as immoral, and one which conduced towards the destruction of her business which she had built up with so much care and secrecy. The lady had been finding her novelettes dull reading lately. The love interest had not been nearly strong enough for her taste, and she felt that her imagination could have supplied many details that were wanting. In the meantime flowers were springing in the garden, which was on low ground and entirely sheltered from every wind; and one morning Mrs. Fuzzey came in to announce that the Grotto would soon be beautiful, as the white arabis and purple aubrietia were smothered with buds.
Soon after that it happened with Thomasine after the manner of women, and she gave birth to twins, both girls. Mrs. Fuzzey was kindness itself while she attended the girl, but when the first had been followed by the second she began to grumble and said she should require another sovereign. She couldn't work for nothing, and she echoed Brightly's frequently expressed complaint that trade was cruel dull. The infants were removed, and then Thomasine gave birth to a third, a boy this time. Mrs. Fuzzey became really angry, and wanted to know if this sort of thing was likely to continue. She knew all about the legend current around Chulmleigh, of the Countess of Devon who met a labourer carrying a basketful of seven infants, which his wife had just given birth to, down to the river that he might dispose of them like kittens, and she thought it possible that Thomasine might be about to emulate that woman's example. Mrs. Fuzzey was not prepared to deal with infants in such quantity, and she stated she should require an additional five pounds to cover extra work and risk.
"Have ye purty nigh done?" she asked at length.
"Ees," muttered Thomasine faintly.
"About time, I reckon. Well, I'll step under and ha' a drop just to quiet my nerves like."
Mrs. Fuzzey had her drop, then attended to her professional duties, which did not detain her long, had another drop, which kept her engaged some time, and finally returned and asked the girl how she did.
"Proper bad. I reckon I be dying," said Thomasine.
Mrs. Fuzzey laughed her to scorn. "You'm as fresh as a trout. Come through it fine, my dear. You can't say I bain't a tender woman," she went on, the various "drops," and the knowledge that the unpleasant part of her work was over, having rendered her amiable. "I know the trade, I du, and I be so soft and gentle that you didn't feel hardly anything. 'Twas lucky for yew, my dear, they sent yew to me. Any old doctor might ha' killed ye. I reckon I'm just about the handiest at the trade a living, and cruel tender tu. Done a lot o' good in my time, I ha'. Saved many a maid just like I've saved yew."
Mrs. Fuzzey talked as if she regarded herself eminently qualified for decorations and a pension.
"'Tis a pity yew can't claim the bounty," she went on. "But there, it bain't much, only a pound or two, though a little bit be a lot for poor wimmin like yew and me, my dear. 'Twould help yew to pay me, for I can't du all this extra work for nought, wi' times so bad, and maids not coming reg'lar. I can't du it, my dear. Well, I reckon I'll go under and ha' a drop."
Mrs. Fuzzey lived on sloe-gin during such days, feeling she required it to strengthen her nerve, or possibly to ease her abnormal conscience. She finished the bottle before she appeared again.
It remained as peaceful as ever about Ashland. Nobody passed that day, or the day after; and the dark little lanes hidden away like caves were full of mud and water as they always were at that season of the year.
When Thomasine felt better she asked for the infants, and Mrs. Fuzzey, who could not walk without lurching from side to side, cast up her eyes and her hands, and wondered whatever the girl was talking about.
"Having dree of 'em and thinking they'm alive, the purty little lambs. They was proper booties, my dear. I could ha' kissed 'em I loved 'em so cruel. I never did see babies I loved so much. I'd like to ha' nursed the purty dears, given 'em baths, dressed 'em, made 'em look fine. But what can ye du wi' dead babies, my dear, 'cept get 'em out o' the way?"
"I heard 'em cry," said Thomasine.
"Lord love ye, my dear, you'm that mazed yew could fancy anything. 'Twas just the door creaking as I carried 'em out."
"Where be 'em?" asked Thomasine.
"Safe in the Grotto, my dear. There be a bit o' warm sunshine, and 'tis butiful."
"Was 'em all born dead?"
"All dree," hiccupped Mrs. Fuzzey with the utmost cheerfulness. "'Tis a good thing for yew. What would an unmarried girl du wi' dree babies?"
Thomasine had not considered that point. She could not know that every girl who had occupied that bed before her had asked much the same questions, and had received exactly the same answers. She admitted that it was a good thing, although she had to murmur: "I'd ha' liked to cuddle 'em just once," which was a long speech for Thomasine.
She was thankful her ordeal was over, though she wondered what Pendoggat would say when he heard the children were dead. He had often told her how he should love any child that was theirs. Still he could not refuse to marry her now. She would have to get strong again as soon as she could, because she knew he would be waiting for her.
The next day Mrs. Fuzzey entered in excellent spirits and half-sober. The sun was shining, she said, and the arabis and aubrietia were in flower among the rocks, and "The Grotto be looking just butiful, my dear."