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Authors: Jane Harris
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her eyes, she had fell once again into Melancholia.
“Why was that, marm?” I says very quiet. “What happened?”
Now I was only chancing my arm, thinking she would more than likely change the subject or walk out like she’d done earlier. So you could have knocked me down with a feather when she leaned towards me, took my hand in hers and looked me deep in the eyes.
“Not many people know this, Bessy,” she says very earnest. “Can I rely on you not to tell a soul?”
Well flip me I could have cheered. To be took into her confidence! But instead I pursed my lips put my head on one side and made my face very reliable. You could not have found a more reliable person in the whole of Scratchland. I was reliability itself.
“Indeed you can, marm,” I says. “I would take it to my grave whatever it is.”
She nodded. “Yes,” she says. “I believe you would.” And then she told me her story.
Of course I didn’t write it down because it was tellt to me in confidence. And although as far as I knew she and I were the only ones to look in my book I was very aware of what might happen if it fell into the
wrong hands.
The missus wouldn’t want her private business bandied about by the likes of Biscuit Meek or AP Henderson, the scuts, and neither would I, that was why I was always very careful what I wrote in there.
However.
Several years have passed since. I have thought long and hard about it and decided to write a brief version of what she told me here since it may be of use and I have been assured that this document is only for the PRIVATE perusal of one or two gentlemen.
This is what the missus said. Sure she herself hadn’t known the first thing about cows either when she originally came to Scratchland, a young girl only a few years older than I was then, all the way up from London with her new husband, that is my master James as was. He had went down to that Great English City to spend a few weeks seeing the lions and attending concert parties, Promenades, Conversaziones and the like. Reading between the lines (not the lions) he was there to find a wife. And find one he did, in the delectable form of missus age 19. He tellt her he had trained in the law but that he did not practise any more what he done instead was dabble in a number of business interests he had inherited. After a few weeks courting he went down on his one knee in Wimbledon. “Castle Haivers is yours, my dearie,” he’d said and that’s what he tellt her father too though I don’t expect he called him dearie and off they set after the wedding the new bride next her wealthy husband, her cheeks flushed and attar of roses in her hair, ready to greet the staff at her grand new home.
What master James neglected to mention, of course, was that Castle Haivers was just the name of the estate. Right enough, he had a queer few hundred acres and some tenant farmer buckos and he did not otherwise lack in wealth and business interests, but there was not a castle in sight only dirt land none of it too pretty and a crumbling old mansion and the Mains. Missus tellt me that on her first night in Castle Haivers she cried until she couldn’t see out her eyes.
At that the both of us had a little weep thegether about her misfortune. Then she wiped her cheeks and wiped mine. I asked her why she hadn’t ran away and she said Oh she had, the very day after they arrived. While master James was out talking to his foreman, she packed a little bag, ran down the road, got a ride on a cart, then jumped on the first train to London and threw herself on her fathers mercy back in Wimbledon which thinking about it now was a very brave thing for her to do.
“What happened?” I asked her.
She says everything was grand at first, her father said “there there‘ and of course she didn’t have to go back. But then he asked her about the nuptials.
“What about them, missus?” I says.
“Whether they had taken place,” she says and looked crestfallen. From
“Why was that, marm?” I says very quiet. “What happened?”
Now I was only chancing my arm, thinking she would more than likely change the subject or walk out like she’d done earlier. So you could have knocked me down with a feather when she leaned towards me, took my hand in hers and looked me deep in the eyes.
“Not many people know this, Bessy,” she says very earnest. “Can I rely on you not to tell a soul?”
Well flip me I could have cheered. To be took into her confidence! But instead I pursed my lips put my head on one side and made my face very reliable. You could not have found a more reliable person in the whole of Scratchland. I was reliability itself.
“Indeed you can, marm,” I says. “I would take it to my grave whatever it is.”
She nodded. “Yes,” she says. “I believe you would.” And then she told me her story.
Of course I didn’t write it down because it was tellt to me in confidence. And although as far as I knew she and I were the only ones to look in my book I was very aware of what might happen if it fell into the
wrong hands.
The missus wouldn’t want her private business bandied about by the likes of Biscuit Meek or AP Henderson, the scuts, and neither would I, that was why I was always very careful what I wrote in there.
However.
Several years have passed since. I have thought long and hard about it and decided to write a brief version of what she told me here since it may be of use and I have been assured that this document is only for the PRIVATE perusal of one or two gentlemen.
This is what the missus said. Sure she herself hadn’t known the first thing about cows either when she originally came to Scratchland, a young girl only a few years older than I was then, all the way up from London with her new husband, that is my master James as was. He had went down to that Great English City to spend a few weeks seeing the lions and attending concert parties, Promenades, Conversaziones and the like. Reading between the lines (not the lions) he was there to find a wife. And find one he did, in the delectable form of missus age 19. He tellt her he had trained in the law but that he did not practise any more what he done instead was dabble in a number of business interests he had inherited. After a few weeks courting he went down on his one knee in Wimbledon. “Castle Haivers is yours, my dearie,” he’d said and that’s what he tellt her father too though I don’t expect he called him dearie and off they set after the wedding the new bride next her wealthy husband, her cheeks flushed and attar of roses in her hair, ready to greet the staff at her grand new home.
What master James neglected to mention, of course, was that Castle Haivers was just the name of the estate. Right enough, he had a queer few hundred acres and some tenant farmer buckos and he did not otherwise lack in wealth and business interests, but there was not a castle in sight only dirt land none of it too pretty and a crumbling old mansion and the Mains. Missus tellt me that on her first night in Castle Haivers she cried until she couldn’t see out her eyes.
At that the both of us had a little weep thegether about her misfortune. Then she wiped her cheeks and wiped mine. I asked her why she hadn’t ran away and she said Oh she had, the very day after they arrived. While master James was out talking to his foreman, she packed a little bag, ran down the road, got a ride on a cart, then jumped on the first train to London and threw herself on her fathers mercy back in Wimbledon which thinking about it now was a very brave thing for her to do.
“What happened?” I asked her.
She says everything was grand at first, her father said “there there‘ and of course she didn’t have to go back. But then he asked her about the nuptials.
“What about them, missus?” I says.
“Whether they had taken place,” she says and looked crestfallen. From
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