A Green Bay Tree Read online

  Ellis shrugged. ‘Let go,’ he said, equably. ‘You're hurting.’

  It was boring, torturing Ellis. However much Alex hurt him, the younger child would never cry, or beg for mercy. He simply waited for his tormentor to get tired. So now, Alex released him. ‘Will you stay?’ he pleaded. ‘If my father agrees?’

  ‘No. I've been here long enough. I must go home soon.’

  ‘Home!’ sneered Alex. ‘That tumbledown hovel. That great barn, that cowshed. How can you call that place home?’ Gazing all around the warm, airy chamber in which the children lay, he sighed. ‘Ellis, surely you like it here?’

  ‘Yes, I do. But — ’

  Indeed, Ellis was sorely tempted. The Lowells’ home was a new mansion, raised on the ruins of a Jacobean manor house. The huge cellars and vaults of this still survived, and were the most marvellous of playrooms.

  The place was so comfortable. So warm. Even in the children's rooms, fires always burned. The windows were a snug fit, so excluded all draughts.

  The whole house was light. The gracious oblong casements let in all the sunshine. This lit up the pale Georgian greens and blues in which the interior was decorated. It illuminated the neat candy stripes of the wallpapers in the large drawing room and dining room downstairs.

  By contrast, Ellis's own home — a Tudor hall in the last stages of dereliction and decay, riddled throughout with worm and rot — was a hovel indeed.

  Seeing Ellis wavering, Alex pursued his advantage. ‘Stay!’ he cried, pathetically. He hugged his friend around the neck. ‘Stay, stay, stay!’

  ‘I can't, Alex.’ Ellis pushed him away. ‘I must go home. To see Lally.’

  Chapter 2

  Lyddy Searle's father was the village blacksmith. A devout, God–fearing man, he was a Dissenter of the most narrow– minded, puritanical kind. He was also a mainstay of the local chapel.

  He had no time for women. In his opinion and experience, they were feckless, irresponsible and generally contemptible. All the same, his own daughter's disgrace was a terrible burden for Jeremy Searle's broad shoulders to bear.

  Lyddy, however, seemed not to feel her shame. When the alteration in her shape finally brought her condition to her father's attention, he took her into the kitchen to examine her soul. He did not find it clad in the white raiment of repentance. Instead, he discovered it was very black indeed.

  ‘Well? Did you encourage the squire?’ he demanded, of a surly, silent Lyddy. ‘Set out to entice and ensnare him? So that the man, being but flesh, was tempted beyond resistance?’

  Despising this Presbyterian cant which she had, in any case, heard a thousand times before, Lyddy was silent. Her father took this to mean she gloried in her disgrace, and was not in the least repentant of her sins.

  ‘Speak to me, child!’ Jeremy glared at her. ‘Tell me now! Have I not brought you up in godliness and righteousness? Have I not taught you to conduct yourself as a Christian maiden should?’ He shot a spiteful glance at his wife, who sat weeping quietly in the chimney corner. ‘Did I not seek to check the sinful indulgence of your mother, and guide your steps in the ways of holiness?’

  Lyddy neither spoke nor moved.

  So, grind his teeth and glare at her though he might, Jeremy Searle failed to bring his daughter to a proper state of contrition. Worse, Lyddy as good as admitted she had led the man on — so he was in no position now to go up to Mr Lowell's house and cross–examine the other sinner in the case, the father of this little child his daughter was about to bear.

  Had Lyddy wailed and wept, had she declared herself a poor innocent seduced by a vile adulterer, Jeremy would have hauled her up to the great house there and then, to confront the squire with the evidence of his crimes. But since she sat and said nothing at all, what could Jeremy do?

  Detesting both the idolatrous Church of England and the Tory squirearchy which supported it, for years the blacksmith had been a thorn in the side of the squire. A fierce and outspoken critic of almost everything Henry Lowell did, Jeremy Searle particularly opposed the squire's determination to enclose most of the local common land. For such enclosure robbed the peasants both of grazing rights, opportunities to gather fuel, and any chance to keep livestock of their own.

  As far as the squire was concerned, the blacksmith did not know his place. Jeremy Searle never touched his forelock to Mr Lowell. He never shrank into the hedge as the gentleman's coach swept by. He never crept or fawned or asked a single favour of the lord of the manor. He would rather have starved than beg.

  Now the squire had taught him a lesson. Had sired a bastard grandchild upon him. Was this simple retribution? If so, for what? For the squire's hunters being kept waiting at the forge, while the tenant farmer's work horses were shod? For the making of Mrs Lowell's fancy wrought–iron plant baskets being held up, while a ploughshare was repaired?

  ‘Why, girl? Why?’ Jeremy was determined to have an answer. ‘Did he force you? If so, I'll have the justices on him, lord of the manor or no! So tell me. Was it rape?’

  Still dumb, Lyddy looked at him. Then she shook her head.

  ‘You went to him willingly?’

  Lyddy nodded. Folding her arms across her stomach, she braced herself for the blow which must surely fall.

  But, with a disgusted snort, Jeremy jumped to his feet. He strode out of the house. He went into the forge, pumped the bellows, then beat the squire — in the form of a new horse shoe — completely senseless.

  Lyddy and her mother remained in the kitchen. There, the silence was broken only by the older woman's sniffs, and the squeaking of needles piercing the leather of the gloves they made. For this part–time occupation was common to all village women who had skills in needlework.

  Still smarting from her husband's reference to the sinful indulgence with which she'd treated Lyddy, poor Mrs Searle blamed herself for everything. Now, she sighed. Her daughter had been such a beautiful child! She was beautiful still. As fair as an angel, this girl had been given her as consolation for the loss of two sons, both in their early infancy. ‘Lyddy,’ she ventured, ‘when you've finished that pair, shall we have some tea?’

  Lyddy rose to her feet. She went into the scullery, where she filled a kettle. On her way to the fire, she touched her mother's shoulder. ‘Don't cry, Mam,’ she said, softly. ‘It doesn't help.’

  * * * *

  The village continued to seethe with gossip, rumour and speculation. Then, one chilly winter morning, the Searles — Jeremy, his wife Judith, and their now almost spherical daughter Lyddy — piled their luggage on a wagon borrowed from a tenant farmer and left the forge, the village, and possibly even the county itself.

  Jeremy had told no one they were leaving, and gave nobody — not even his travelling companions — any information about where they were bound.

  The forge was the freehold property of the Searles, and now it was boarded up. Nor was it subsequently let. Soon, the inconvenience of having no local blacksmith, of being obliged to wait for the visits of an itinerant farrier cum tooth–drawer cum smith, was keenly felt by the entire neighbourhood, from the squire downwards.

  ‘Maybe they'll return.’ A disgruntled farmer, whose cart–horses’ shoes were by now in a terrible condition, looked hopefully at his neighbour. ‘After the girl's had the child, like, maybe they'll come back.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ The neighbour, whose own Cleveland bays were unfit for carriage work on account of having cast most of their shoes, sniffed morosely. ‘Jem Searle wasn't deaf. He heard what Meg Gowan and Ellen Wheeler were sayin’ about him and his family. He's done this to spite us.’

  ‘You reckon?’ The farmer shook his head. ‘Women. Eh, Jack? Bloody women.’

  ‘Downfall of many a good man.’

  ‘It's a fact.’ The farmer sighed. ‘A true fact indeed.’

  * * * *

  The blacksmith's savings were sufficient to convey the family to Warwick, and to lodge them all at a respectable inn. There, the baby was born and Lyddy recovered her
strength.

  But, as his neighbour had predicted, Jeremy Searle had no intention of returning to the village of his birth. An avid reader of newspapers and broadsheets, he was well aware of the opportunities which awaited the talented and ambitious in the newly burgeoning towns of Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester and Liverpool.

  He had often wondered if he too could become a manufacturer. He yearned to belong to that new breed of men, who now dominated the economy of the country. Who were demolishing the old order. Who would smack the squires and fine gentlemen, who infested the land, squarely in the eye.

  The time was ripe. He would realise his dreams.

  It wouldn't matter if the women assumed it was Lyddy's disgrace alone which had driven him from the village. Indeed, this notion would help keep them properly docile. So he took these two vessels for sin aside, and harangued them thoroughly on the subject of their wickedness. He then informed them they were all going to Birmingham, a place where they were not known, to seek a new living there.

  ‘Now listen, the pair of you,’ he said. He fixed his blue glare on his cringing wife and tearful daughter. ‘Pay close attention to what I say. The baby — as far as the world is concerned, anyway — belonged to Lyddy's sister–in– law.’

  ‘What sister–in–law?’ Astonished, Lyddy broke her vow of silence. Covering the baby's little hand with hers, she gaped. ‘Father — ’

  ‘Your sister–in–law who died in childbirth.’ Still Jeremy glared. ‘Her husband — a good–for–nothing scoundrel since disowned by us all — deserted her on her deathbed. He went for a soldier. Abandoned both mother and child.’

  The blacksmith shook Lyddy's shoulder, wrenching it so viciously that the child she was feeding lost her grip on the breast and cried out in alarm. ‘You're this baby's aunt,’ he repeated. ‘Do you understand me? Her maiden aunt.’

  Milk streaming down her chest and soaking her clothes, Lyddy nodded helplessly. Now she tried to pacify the squealing baby who, after some choking and squawking, finally consented to get on with her feed.

  ‘So you won't be seen nursing her in public,’ added Jeremy, giving the child a baleful stare. ‘You'll feed her in private only. Do you hear me? If she cries when you're out in the street with her, you let her cry.’

  Lyddy opened her mouth to protest. But, as Jeremy's own lips compressed themselves into a cold, hard line, she closed it again. She held the baby close, to hide it from her father's hostile gaze.

  * * * *

  It was a frosty morning in late February when the family climbed into the farmer's creaking cart which Jeremy had hired to make the journey to Birmingham. The blacksmith took up the reins. The horses shook themselves and stamped their great feet. Then, slowly, the rickety contraption moved off along the pot–holed road.

  ‘It's time that infant was given a name,’ said Jeremy, as they bowled along. ‘Have you thought of one?’

  ‘I wish to call her Susannah.’ Lyddy looked down at the baby. ‘I think it suits her.’

  ‘No doubt it does.’ Jeremy snorted. ‘Yes, it's a fine name for a bastard child. Susannah! Who enticed the elders. Who exposed her body to men with no more shame than a common harlot might feel. Who — ’

  ‘But father, Susannah didn't entice — ’

  ‘Rebecca.’ Sucking in his cheeks, Jeremy nodded, as if agreeing with himself. ‘Rebecca. That's the babe's name.’

  So Rebecca, of course, it was.

  There was a great deal of traffic on the road that morning. Farm wagons, gentlemen's coaches, private cabs and public diligences all bounced and swayed along the muddy, rutted highway which led to the great manufacturing town in the distance.

  In due course, the baby in Lyddy's arms began to cry for her dinner. ‘Wait until we get to the inn.’ As Lyddy began to unhook her bodice, Jeremy glowered at her. ‘You know what I told you.’

  ‘But Father, she's hungry. She's crying!’

  ‘Let her cry.’ Jeremy stared straight ahead. ‘She'll come to no harm. She'll maybe learn some Christian patience, too.’

  But now Mrs Searle covertly ripped a shred of cloth from her cuff. She passed it to her daughter. ‘Here,’ she whispered. ‘Make a comforter for her.’

  So Lyddy twisted the piece of linen into a spiral. Sliding her hand inside her bodice, she dabbed her nipples until the material was soaked. She pushed the milky fabric into Rebecca's little mouth.

  Disgusted, Rebecca spat it out again. But Lyddy persevered. Half an hour later, still puzzled and famished, the baby fell into a fitful, whimpering sleep.

  Just as the sun was falling beyond the horizon, the family reached the outskirts of the town. Dying rays of day cast a feeble, ghostly light on grimy buildings, dingy manufactories, and smoke–stained houses. Behind these, the sky was a sickly yellow. Higher up, it became a ghastly red.

  Until today, Lyddy had never seen a manufacturing town. Now, cradling Rebecca in her arms, she gazed in dismay at its dismal, blank–walled manufactories, its huge, forbidding warehouses, and its filthy slums where starved, half–naked children wailed or played.

  Hearing the unceasing din of industry, she wanted to cover her ears. Feeling soft flakes of soot settling on her head, she wondered if coming to this awful place were a divine judgement. A punishment for her sins.

  Taking lodgings in one of the less squalid of the town's two hundred and fifty inns, the elder Searles lay down to sleep. But Lyddy paced the floor, trying to feed a baby so exhausted by crying that she had no energy to suck.

  * * * *

  ‘Here we are then, Master Ellis. Home again.’ The Lowells’ under–coachman, who had just driven the boy the twelve miles to Easton Hall, grinned encouragingly. ‘Well, down you get then. Aren't you glad to be back?’

  ‘What?’ Ellis sniffed. No, he wasn't. Not particularly. In spite of what he'd told Alex about being obliged to return home, he wasn't especially glad to see Easton Hall again.

  After the elegance and luxury of the Lowell household, his own home was a wretched place. Cold, uncomfortable and squalid, its fabric was crumbling and its drains had been blocked so long that it stank.

  His parents were seldom on speaking terms, so the atmosphere indoors was frosty in every sense. The servants, whose wages were generally in arrears, were obstructive, quarrelsome and sour.

  But Lalage was there. Ellis's beloved little sister Lalage, who chattered and babbled enough for three children, made coming home more than worthwhile. Now, having heard the sound of wheels on gravel, she escaped from her nurse and ran out to meet her brother.

  ‘Ellis!’ she squealed. Hysterical with delight, she tore across the weed–infested drive. ‘Ellis! Oh, Ellis! You've come back! What have you brought me?’ Launching herself at his stomach, she beamed up at him. She tugged at his coat–tails in anticipatory glee.

  Ellis swept her into his arms. He hugged her. In return, she gave him a very sticky kiss, redolent of her breakfast. Monkey–fashion, she wrapped her legs around his waist. Clinging like a vine, she buried her face in his hair.

  But now he realised she'd wet herself. So, unfastening her ankles, he put her down again. ‘Oh, Lally,’ he scolded, wiping his hands on her already grimy pinafore. ‘Why can't you go to the close–stool, like everyone else?’

  Lalage's nurse came out now. She found her charge fishing in her brother's pockets.

  ‘Marzipan!’ Thrilled, Lalage crammed a large yellow lump into her grubby mouth. She thrust her hand in again. ‘A doll!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Ellis! A real china doll!’ Her happiness was complete.

  Ellis laughed. ‘From Mrs Lowell,’ he explained. Taking it from her he held it, teasingly, just out of her reach. ‘She says you're to have it only if you've learned your alphabet.’

  ‘My alphabet?’ Lalage sniffed in derision. ‘I learnt that weeks ago. Give her to me, Ellis. Please!’

  He tossed the doll into the air. ‘Here, then. Catch.’

  She caught it just in time. Had it hit the ground, it would certainly have smashed
. Now she examined it and was pleased to discover that, if yanked at hard enough, its pink satin gown would come off. So now, stuffing another lump of sweetmeat into her already bulging mouth, she ran off. She must show her treasures to her mother.

  Lalage was Mrs Darrow's youngest child. Her baby, her darling, she was a much–wanted daughter, born after two difficult and distressing pregnancies which had both ended in the delivery of a stillborn son. Petted and spoiled by her mother but totally ignored by her father, who despised girls, at five years old she was still a baby. Ellis wondered if she'd ever grow up.

  He went upstairs to his room. This, he found, bore all the signs of his sister's recent occupation. She'd scribbled in his books, piddled on his floor, and slept in his bed. He pulled a face. Instead of Alex, he'd now have Lalage as a bedfellow each night.

  For, in spite of threats from him, smacks from her nurse and rebukes from her mother, he knew that at dead of night Lalage would sneak out of her nursery and make her way along the pitch dark corridors to her brother's room. In the morning, he'd wake to find his hair being pulled by a smelly little visitor.

  Ellis groaned. Alex might squirm and kick and snort throughout the night, but Lally was far more trying. She lay on top of him, practically smothering him in her embrace. She dug her sharp toenails into his shins. Worse than that, the little wretch soaked his bed.

  She didn't care. If he pulled up her nightgown and slapped her bottom, she just laughed.

  When he was grown up, Ellis decided, he would have a bed all to himself. In his own private room. There would be a padlock on the door.

  * * * *

  Both the Lowells and Darrows lived on their estates, amidst ancestral acres deep in the green Warwickshire countryside. The Darrows had held these same acres since Domesday, but the Lowells were relative parvenus, having received their sizeable grants of lands for backing the (eventual) right side in the Civil War.