Coram Boy

Alexander nodded an acknowledgement and climbed back on to the carriage. ‘I dislike that man. He’s insolent. What’s more, he treats his animals abominably and his son not much better,’ he muttered. They looked at Meshak running behind now with the mules, as Otis drove the wagon on at speed.

‘Otis Gardiner! Otis!’ Mrs Lynch called out as the mules and wagon reached the Borham barn. ‘Don’t forget to call at Ashbrook! I would be most obliged.’

‘Rest assured, Mrs Lynch! I’d as soon forget my right hand. I’ll be calling by in a day or two,’ and Otis turned into the barn, leaving the road free.

John Millman coaxed the carriage onwards. They began to climb and their pace was slower now. They entered the depths of thick beechwoods, where knotted roots thrust up through the earth. The track became more pitted and rutted and, had there not been two strong horses, the carriage would have got bogged down and abandoned. As it was, the boys, feeling sick with all the swaying and tossing, jumped down and said they would walk.

Alexander guided Thomas to a track. ‘I want to show you something,’ he said. They climbed and climbed. The path rose, twisting gradually round the edge of the hillside until, suddenly, it levelled out and the woods gradually thinned.

Alexander took Thomas to the edge of a knoll and grasped him by the arm. ‘Look down there!’ Far, far below, shining amber in the noon sunlight, he saw Gloucester Cathedral gleaming like a jewel. ‘Now let me show you something else,’ cried Alexander. He left the path and began to scramble almost vertically up the hillside. On hands and knees, they scrambled and slid and sometimes clung to creepers which hung from the branches to haul themselves upwards. Finally, they surfaced like swimmers out of the dark wood into the bright open reaches of a heath. The sky was wildly blue; it surrounded them as though they stood on the rim of the world.

Far below them, in the middle of all that Cotswold wilderness, stretched a landscape of smooth, deforested slopes which extended into cultivated lawns, hedgerows and paved walkways culminating in an artificial lake. In the middle of the lake stood a small Greek temple. Beautiful ornamental gardens were bursting with summer flowers and elegant walks entered shady pergolas and secret bowers. It looked like a hidden kingdom, guarded by the overlapping wooded hills which encircled it. Dominating it all was the finest house Thomas could ever have imagined: a huge honey-stoned mansion of steeply pitched stone-slated roofs, gables and elaborate cornices, of tall ornate chimney stacks and mullioned windows.

‘That’s a fine house. Who could possibly own that?’ murmured Thomas. ‘I can’t imagine anyone normal living there.’

‘Can’t you, Thomas?’ said Alexander lightly. ‘Come, let’s get back to the carriage,’ and, oblivious of his fine clothes, Alexander led the way, slipping and sliding down through the dense undergrowth till they dropped back on to the track.

In due course, the carriage came lurching and bumping into view with Mrs Lynch walking alongside. ‘Oh goodness me,’ she wailed when she saw them. ‘I swear this must be worse than being at sea. The tracks get more and more impossible.’

‘You will find it easier going as from here,’ John Millman assured them. Soon the road levelled out and ran evenly between avenues of elm and whitebeam. They entered Ashbrook village with its church and inn, where hordes of bare-footed children and scraggy dogs came bounding towards them, cheering and hollering. The road climbed the gradient once more and they broke the brow of the hill. There, at a crossroads, stood a huge oak tree with the remnants of a gallows rope still tossed over its highest branch. A fifth track passed between two tall stone gates which flanked a long avenue of lime trees. And there, at the end of the avenue, was the house Alexander had shown him from the top of the moor.

‘Welcome to Ashbrook House,’ exclaimed Alexander.

‘Oh!’ Thomas gave a small gasp. Then was silent. This was worse than he had imagined. Alexander wasn’t just a gentleman, he was more like a prince. Thomas could have leapt from the coach and run away. This was no place for the likes of him – where he was lower born than the servants themselves.

‘Am I not normal any more, now that you see where I live?’ asked Alexander with a smile.

‘You are normal for your kind and I for mine,’ answered Thomas warily, not wishing to offend. He couldn’t imagine such a place being a home, not home as he knew it: a one-up, one-down, and his mother smoking her herrings, the chickens and hens strutting in and out of the door as if they owned the place, and all his brothers and sisters tumbling around, the big ones in charge of the little ones, each with their tasks, and his father with shirt sleeves rolled above his elbows and bibbed apron, hammering and sawing, and the geese honking demandingly, the pig snuffling in its box out in the yard and a cow tethered in the shed. That was his home.

As the carriage wound round the forecourt to the great porticoed front door, scarlet and gold liveried footmen in white wigs and white gloves were already running down the steps to open the carriage doors and carry in the baggage. Several hounds of various sizes came lolloping out, wagging and barking, not yet aware of who they were greeting.

‘Alex, Alex! Alexander is here!’ Young voices yelled out joyfully and, as Alexander jumped down, a small boy and girl hurtled out of the house and flung themselves on top of him, followed by a large, black, long-haired dog, determined not to be left out of the welcome. Alexander, half strangled by loving arms, managed to greet them all, kissing and patting child and beast and calling out to Thomas, ‘Hey, Tom, Tom – these little horrors are Edward and Alice, and this great shaggy beast of a dog here is Bessie. Dear old Bessie – she’s as old as I am, you know, and this – is this Zanzibar? I thought he was a puppy, but look at him!’ Alexander gathered up the large wriggling creature and attempted to hug him, but the dog leapt from his arms and went bounding around in excited circles. ‘We’ll train him up to be the best hunting dog – you’ll see. We’ll go hunting in Ashbrook Woods . . . and where’s Isobel?’

An upright lady in a stiff bonnet and stiffly starched grey skirts appeared in the doorway. She was accompanied by two young ladies, whose excitement she seemed intent on controlling. She lost the battle with one, who simply flew down the steps, all hooped petticoats and frills and ringlets tossing beneath her cap, and clasped Alexander, little ones and all, in her arms. ‘Alex, Alex, welcome home! At last you’ve come. We expected you hours ago.’

Alexander plonked the two little ones down, who hugged his knees and nearly toppled him over, while he embraced the girl.

‘Oh, Alex,’ she burbled, ‘look at the size of you! You’ve grown as tall as Papa.’

‘This is my sister, Isobel,’ laughed Alexander introducing her to Thomas, who bowed shyly, his cap clasped in both hands. ‘Isobel, meet Thomas. He is the most splendid fellow that ever walked the earth and the funniest!’

Isobel was smiling broadly, and Thomas immediately thought how nice she looked with her laughing face. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you. Very pleased indeed, Miss Isobel!’ he burst out, bowing over and over again.

The other girl at the top of the steps still hadn’t moved. She was very pretty, with a delicately featured face, rich auburn hair and briefly glimpsed eyes, blue as thrushes’ eggs, before she lowered them. Thomas wondered if the stiff lady next to her was Lady Ashbrook, for she held herself so proudly.

Alexander, still entangled by excited younger siblings, was dragged up the steps by Isobel. ‘Alex, this is Mrs Milcote, our governess. She has been with us some weeks now,’ cried Isobel. ‘She’s Mama’s cousin, you know.’

Alexander took the stiff lady’s hand and kissed it, bowing low. ‘A pleasure, Mrs Milcote.’

‘My pleasure, Master Alexander. My pleasure indeed.’ Mrs Milcote’s clipped accents seemed to have trouble coming out of her tight small mouth, though she took a while to withdraw her hand. ‘You have been much spoken of and so highly praised that I have been awaiting your acquaintance with great impatience. My daughter too; please meet Melissa.’ She nudged the girl almost imperceptibly, but Thomas noticed. Melissa bobbed shyly as she took Alexander’s outstretched hand, but did not lift her eyes.

‘Melissa is my dearest friend – my sister,’ enthused Isobel, throwing an arm round her shoulders. ‘My life has changed since she came. I had been so lonely after you went away.’

‘And Thomas is my dearest friend,’ replied Alexander with quiet warmth. ‘Mrs Milcote, Miss Melissa, meet Thomas.’

Mrs Milcote merely nodded politely. She did not look Thomas in the eye nor extend her hand to take his which he had held out, and by keeping her arm firmly linked with Melissa’s, prevented her daughter from doing more than giving a slight bob.

Thomas withdrew his hand quickly, feeling a rush of blood seep over his face and neck. He bowed low and stood back. Now he remembered why he had felt anxious about coming to Ashbrook.

Chapter Five

Dawdley Dan

The first day was an ordeal for Thomas. The meeting on the steps of Ashbrook was just the start of it. How he wished he had never come; how he wished that the ground could have opened and swallowed him up. Why, even the servants were better dressed than he, even when he wore his uncle’s clothes. Never was he more ashamed than when he saw their eyes scan his heavy jacket and breeches, his hob-nailed boots and cotton shirt – and these were his best clothes. How would he get through four weeks? He was spared meeting Sir William Ashbrook, who had had to go to Bristol to see one of his ships, late in from Barbados.

Lady Ashbrook had been solemnly kind and enquiring and tried to put him at his ease, but it was the bowing and bobbing and intricate details of the pecking order that existed in the household which left him clumsily bewildered. The arrogance of the butler, the superciliousness of the footmen and the whispered jibes of the servants, scullery maids and housemaids made him feel like a piece of clod from the farmyard which should be swept out of this elegant house.

At that first dinner, he could almost sense the sneering laughter at his elbow as he tried to serve himself from the platters, and he was sure that the way he was always a little after everyone else in picking up a piece of cutlery, glancing round first just to ensure that he lifted the correct knife, fork or spoon, did not go unnoticed. But this time, unlike when he first arrived at the cathedral school, he was comforted by the reassuring kick he got from Alexander sitting next to him and Isobel’s sympathetic glances.

The food was borne in on silver platters by white-gloved manservants; food he had never even seen before: venison pie, partridge breasts, grilled trout, slivers of ham, trifle with cream and jam, cheese and little biscuits. Too nervous to eat, he had taken tiny portions. But Lady Ashbrook had noticed and said in a kindly way, ‘Ah, Thomas dear, don’t hold back. You’re a thin sort of youth and need building up. Take more, take more.’ So he did and, tentatively, began to enjoy it.

That night would be the first of his life that Thomas had ever slept on his own, and in a proper bed rather than a mattress on the floor which had to be cleared away by day. Mrs Morris, the assistant housekeeper, showed him up to his bedroom, leading the way with a candlestick which held three blazing candles. Huge shadows swung round the well of the broad winding staircase as they climbed, and he was aware of being under the gaze of all the family ancestors, whose portraits stared down at him from the walls. They went up and along a broad corridor and then turned right into another, all flickering with candles. He couldn’t believe such extravagance. Oh, Mam, he thought to himself, if you could but see the number of candles they use. Why, just a quarter of them would last us a lifetime!

They reached an elegant door with a brass lock. She opened it with one of the keys which hung in a huge bunch dangling from her waist. He entered a room so big he was sure it could have contained him and his mother and father and all of his thirteen brothers and sisters with ease. A log fire was burning in the grate, throwing a warm pink glow round the high walls. A four-poster bed was partly hidden behind thick velvet curtains and made up with pillows and cushions and blankets. There were two oak cabinets and between them was his small cloth bag of clothes.

‘Lady Ashbrook said I was to tell you that everything in the cabinets is for your use,’ said Mrs Morris. Suddenly, she turned and looked at him in a motherly sort of way. ‘They do go in for a number of changes in this household, depending on the time of day, who they have to a meal, what the weather is like, what they intend to do and who they intend to visit. It could be confusing. Hmm?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ agreed Thomas miserably.

‘You not being a gentleman and all that – if you don’t mind me saying, young man – allow me to be of help in advising you what to wear. Hmm?’ She tipped her head to one side.

‘Yes, ma’am! Indeed. I would be most grateful,’ cried Thomas.

She opened the cabinet in which were hung a number of jackets and cloaks; folded neatly on shelves were woollen undershirts, pure white cotton shirts, velvet and brocade waistcoats and broadcloth breeches. She took out a complete day outfit and laid it on the couch. ‘I suggest you wear these for breakfast. You can try them on in the morning. If it’s to your liking, of course.’

‘Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am,’ murmured Thomas, awe-struck as he gazed at the gentleman’s clothes.

Before she left him, Mrs Morris toured the room, checking to see that everything was in order. ‘Here is a nightshirt for your use.’ She shook it out and draped it on a chair where the heat of the fire could reach it. She put her hand into the bed. ‘Yes, you’ll be cosy and dry. Becky has used the warming pan on your sheets.’ She peeped under the bed and pulled out the chamber pot to make sure he saw it, then pushed it back again. She went over to a side table on which stood a large china jug and bowl. She noted that the towel was clean, then dipped her fingers into the jug and commented, ‘You have warm water. You’ll be able to wash.’ She poked the fire and threw on an extra log. ‘Becky will be here in the morning to build up the fire again, but this will last well into the night, I’ve no doubt. There’s a bell pull there if you need assistance, and one of the servants will attend you. Sleep well, lad.’

‘Goodnight, ma’am, and thank you kindly,’ replied Thomas gratefully as she closed the door behind her.

Thomas stood for a long time in the middle of the room, just where Mrs Morris had left him, pondering his situation. Then he undressed and put on the nightshirt. ‘What would me mam say if she could see me now?’ he murmured.

He heard a light but insistent tapping on his door. ‘Who is it?’ he whispered, pressing his mouth to the wood.

‘Me. Alexander. Open up!’

Thomas opened it with a big grin.

There stood Alexander also in his nightshirt. ‘Come, come, come. No one will go to sleep until you’ve done some of your funny imitations and sung us some songs.’ He grabbed Thomas’s arm and raced him along the corridor. They stopped before a small door which looked like a cupboard, but when he opened it they stared into the pitch darkness of a narrow stairwell. It was the servants’ stairway which took them up through the stomach of the house. Alexander didn’t hesitate; he dragged Thomas in. Then he opened another door and, suddenly, they were in a fully candlelit corridor, just like the one lower down.

‘Here he is!’ announced Alexander, throwing open a double door at the end of the corridor. Thomas stood, blinking, on the threshold of a large nursery. There were puzzles and toys and a wooden doll’s house, small chairs and tables and a sofa. Before a blazing fire knelt Isobel and Melissa and Edward and Alice all in their night robes, their hair brushed out and gleaming in the firelight. Their eyes shone merrily at the sight of him.

‘Oh come in, do! We’re so glad you’re here!’ cried Isobel, jumping to her feet. ‘Alexander has told us so much about you and how funny you are.’

‘Show us, show us, Thomas!’ yelled the little ones, rolling around like puppies.

In an instant, all the shyness and doubt he had had about having come to Ashbrook vanished in front of their eager friendly faces.

‘Welllummum . . . now then, Ashbrook ummummumm . . . will you umm kindly lead us in the ummum introit . . . ’

‘Why certainly, sir,’ said Alexander solemnly.

Thomas grabbed a drumstick from the toy drum nearby and held it up as a baton. He squinted and blinked, and began waving the stick in the air. ‘Da dee dum da di da . . . ’ he imitated an organ.

‘That’s Dr Smith! He’s exactly like that,’ chortled Alexander, and he began to sing.

‘No no no no . . . my boy . . . ’ Thomas rapped the baton like Dr Smith did. ‘That’s no way to sing to Almighty God. No no nonnno. With love, with feeling, with . . . ’ he waved his arms around dramatically, ‘with . . . rev . . . er . . . ence . . . Remember! You are speaking to God. Almighty God.’ He moaned it out in a mournful way.

‘That’s just how he speaks!’ Alexander shook his head in amazement.

‘I want to be a choir boy,’ shouted Edward, as everyone laughed.

‘Me too,’ echoed Alice, and they lined up next to Alexander.

Melissa and Isobel looked at each other and both leapt to their feet to stand in line before Thomas.

‘Well . . . ummum. Whatumm can you sing, my little onesummm? How about um . . . A frog he wouldum a wooing go ummmummum.’

‘Yes, yes, yes! We know that!’ they shouted.

‘Oneummmum . . . two . . . mmum . . . er . . . what comes after two, eh ummummum?’

‘Three!’ shrieked Alice.

‘Ummummumer . . . three, four . . . ’ and Thomas waved the baton and brought them in on the fourth beat.

‘A frog he would a wooing go, Hey ho said Rowley!’

They sang it rowdily. ‘I’m deeeeeply impressed,’ commented Thomas in his Dr Smith voice when it ended.

‘I want a story, Thomas. Story now,’ demanded Edward once the laughter had died down. ‘Alex says you know lots of funny stories.’

‘Well,’ said Thomas, as they gathered round. ‘I could tell you the story of old Dawdley Dan, the peg-leg man.’

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ The children flopped eagerly to the floor beside the fire, while Thomas stood on one leg and began hopping about.

‘I need a crutch,’ he said, looking around.

‘Will this do?’ cried Melissa, leaping up to get the hobby horse which was propped in a corner.

‘Just the job!’ said Thomas, propping the head of the horse under his armpit. ‘Now then see you here, old Dawdley Dan,’ began Thomas in his broadest Gloucestershire, “im was called Dawdley ’cos ’e did dawdle, see? Not surprising what with ‘is wooden leg an’ all that . . . An’ ’im did like ‘is rum, yer see . . . and I tell you, a man with a wooden leg wot can’t hold ‘is liquor is quite somethin’ to behold.’ Thomas went reeling round the room, while Edward and Alice shrieked with laughter, and Thomas glimpsed Melissa out of the corner of his eye losing all her shyness. She threw back her auburn hair and chuckled like a baby, while Isobel gazed encouragingly at him with the same dark eyes as her brother.

‘An’ then one day old Dawdley Dan, after ‘e’d ‘ad quite a lot to drink, ’e says, “When I was a lad an’ ‘ad two legs, I dived from the bridge an’ swam all the way across to Over.”

‘“You never did,” challenged one of ’is equally drunk mates.

‘“I could do it now,” retorts Dawdley Dan. “I’ll show yer-”

‘“Not now, you couldn’t, Dawdley,” says ‘is mate, “not with that peg leg of yours an’ all that.”

‘“No? I’ll show yer!” roared Dawdley. “Goddamn your eyes, I’ll show yer. Come on, let’s go to the bridge . . . and then . . . ”’

Thomas by this time had hauled himself up on to the table, pretending it was the bridge, and was reeling around, almost falling off.

‘ ’E slung first his good leg over the side, then ‘is peg leg – an’ there ’e was, sittin’ on the bridge, starin’ down into the dark swirlin’ waters . . . and-’

‘What in heaven’s name is going on here?’ Mrs Milcote stood in the doorway. Her body was rigid with indignation.

The laughing stopped instantly. Five startled faces turned.

Melissa, who had been laughing the loudest, stopped dead at the sight of her mother and thrust her hand to her mouth to stifle the sound. She pulled her gown round her tightly and stared speechlessly.

Isobel recovered enough to say, ‘Oh, Mrs Milcote! Do watch Thomas telling his story about-’

‘Miss Ashbrook,’ Miss Milcote spoke, her words freezing like icicles as they left her pursed lips, ‘I hardly think it is fit for young ladies to be seen in their night-time attire before gentlemen – least of all a . . . ’ For a moment, Thomas wondered whether she would say it: ‘a common working fellow’. But she paused and completed her sentence: ‘least of all a vis-it-or.’ She stretched out the last word meaningfully. ‘I think, sir,’ she looked hard at Alexander, ‘you’d better accompany your young friend back to his chamber now. It is rather late.’

Alexander raised an eyebrow as if he was going to refuse to be told what to do by a governess, even if she was a distant relative, but Melissa had gone to her mother’s side and was looking so humiliated that, for her sake, he swallowed his anger. Instead, he hugged the little ones, Edward and Alice. ‘We’ll hear the rest of the story in the morning,’ he reassured them. ‘Now, goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Alex,’ they chorused bleakly. Isobel ran forward and embraced her brother fiercely. ‘It’s so good to have you home, Alex! So very good.’ Then she turned and bobbed to Thomas. ‘Goodnight, Thomas. I do hope your chamber is to your liking. We want you to enjoy your stay at Ashbrook.’

Thomas gave a short bow, ‘Thank you, Miss Isobel,’ and he followed Alexander out of the room.

Mrs Lynch patrolled the corridors of Ashbrook. Her last duties were to ensure that there were sufficient candles burning outside the bedchambers to get through the night. As she passed the quarters of Mrs Milcote and her daughter, she heard raised voices and paused to listen.

‘How could you speak to us like that in front of Alexander and Thomas!’ protested Melissa. ‘I felt so humiliated.’

‘Dear girl . . . ’ Mrs Milcote’s voice was so low that Mrs Lynch had to press her ear to the door to hear her. It was clear that Mrs Milcote had ambitions for her daughter. Marriage, perhaps? Mrs Lynch had noticed how Mrs Milcote had been grooming Melissa, paying extra attention to her education and, in particular, her music. Was this to make her eligible – for Alexander? Mrs Lynch smiled to herself as she heard Mrs Milcote chastising her daughter for her lack of decorum. She was as sure as she could be that Sir William would not consider a penniless, minor relative to be a suitable match for Alexander, his elder son and heir, no matter how pretty and talented she was.

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