PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY

WGAw Registered#: 1279926
© 2011 Winona Kent.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    Amy’s journey back towards the Vicarage took her past the Village Green, and the jumbly row of cottages and houses that together made up what she knew as the Poor House.
    It was a brilliantly sunny day - even sunnier, she thought, than the brilliantly sunny days she was used to 200 years in the future. There was no industrial muck in the air, no exhaust from cars and trains, boats and planes.
    There was a lot of other muck, though... most of it in the middle of the road where the horses had been. She could smell it, mingling with the woodsmoke from the chimneys, and another very distinctive odour... burning coal. Sarah wasn’t well off enough to be able to afford it, but there were a few dwellings nearby whose inhabitants clearly could.
    The Poor House - houses - were still burning wood. And as she trudged past, Amy caught a glimpse of some of the paupers who were living there, supported by the parish... though not for very much longer. Another nine years, and then it would all change. The much reviled Poor Law Amendment would come into play, resulting in the workhouses that Charles Dickens drew attention to in his writing.
    But that was 1834. Now, in 1825, the village poor still had a decent roof over their heads, and a matron to look after them.
    There were 52 people who called the Poor House home...five men, eight women, 17 boys and 22 girls. Most of the boys and girls were either having lessons - such as they were - or were out in the village, or its surrounding farms, learning a trade. The ones remaining were the very young - and here was one of the eight women, a pale-faced thing, barely out of childhood herself, with an infant who was experimenting with the idea of walking, sitting in the sun, her mind elsewhere.
    And there was a very old gentleman, grizzled and threadbare, both in clothing and headhair, also taking the sun, at the same time as he was diligently taking apart a length of worn rope, then pasting the strands onto a small, flat piece of wood, creating a sort of landscape.
    “Hello,” she said, bending over to have a closer look. “That’s quite good, that is.”
    “Eh?” said the old man, raising his hand to his ear.
    “It’s very good!” Amy shouted.
    “He cannot hear you,” the young woman replied. “As deaf as a post. But very good with his hands. He was once upon a time a sailor, old John. Knows those ropes inside out.”
    Amy smiled. “What is your child called?”
    “He is called Daniel.” She paused. “I have not seen you here before.”
    “I am visiting,” Amy said, “from London.”
    “Ah,” the young woman said, with a sigh. “London. I had thought I might visit there one day. Before this.”
    “Are your circumstances so unfortunate?” Amy asked, carefully.
    “Two years ago I was employed as scullery maid to Monsieur Duran,” the young woman replied, unhappily. “Alas, I am employed there no longer. I was relieved of my position, through no fault of my own. Other than a poor innocent’s misguided trust in a rogue.”
    Amy felt dreadful. She was sorry for the young woman - but even sorrier that her forebear, the despicable Monsieur Duran, was the person responsible for her current state.
    “And Daniel...?”
    “He is the rogue’s son. Though he will not admit to it. I was dismissed the moment I informed him. And I had nowhere to go. My mother and father have disowned me. I have a sister who occasionally visits, to bring things for the little ‘un... but she must do so in secret, or she would be disowned as well.”
    And here, the young woman began to weep, wiping her eyes on a thin shawl, and her nose with the back of her hand.
    “What is your name?” Amy asked, kindly.
    “I am Eliza Robinson.”
    Robinson. The same last name as Hattie, who fed the squirrels on the Village Green and forgot her handbag in the toilet in the coffee shop when she’d gone in for a cup of tea.
    Hattie had spoken a little about her ancestors to Amy, knowing her penchant for all things of history. Her father was Frederick, born in 1898, six months after his parents, Francis and Ada, had hurriedly married in a Christmas Day ceremony at St. Eligius. Frederick had been in the trenches in World War One, and a Fire Warden in World War Two, and had made his living as a bricklayer until the day he’d died in 1963, struck down by a stolen milk float driven by a juvenile delinquent who’d gone on to murder three German au pairs in Finchley.
    And his father, Francis Robinson, had been a plasterer’s labourer, and Joseph, his father before him, a saddler... and his father before him... Daniel Robinson. Also a maker of very fine saddles, reputed to be the best, the sturdiest, and the most well crafted in all of Hampshire.
    “Your Daniel,” Amy said, “will, I think, accomplish great things.”
    “He has certainly not benefitted so far from anything I have had to offer,” Eliza lamented.
    “If you take my advice,” Amy said, confidentially. “You will apprentice him to a leatherworker. And speak to him of horses. Often.”
    “Often...?” Eliza faltered.
    “Often,” Amy confirmed. “I bid you a good morning.”
    And she continued on her way, passing several gypsies who were knocking on doors with offers to mend pots and pans, and a dodgy-looking fellow with an eye patch and gnarled hands who may or may not have been a smuggler, sidling into The Dog’s Watch.

#
     
    Inside The Vicarage, in the Lesson Room - the room which 200 years in the future would become the Village Museum’s administrative office - the five Hobson children - three boys and two girls, ranging in age from 6 to 14 - shared two crowded tables with Tom, Jack and Mary Foster.
    All eight children were preparing to sew buttons onto colourful scraps of cotton, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
    Standing between the two tables, Sarah unpacked her hussif - a many-pocketed carry-all made of linen, which she had stitched together herself, and embellished with intricate embroidery. There were needles and pins, and a thimble, a measuring tape and a wooden piece wound with a selection of threads. And there were buttons. All manner of buttons - wood buttons, bone buttons, mother-of-pearl and pewter and china. Buttons wrapped with thread, and buttons covered with fabric.
    Sarah held up a length of cotton thread, and a large needle.
    “It is much easier if you make a little knot in the end of the thread before you pull it through,” she said, demonstrating. “That way it is anchored - and it cannot play tricks upon you.”
    Jack nudged his older brother. “I’m going to sew this button onto the bottom of Mary’s pantaloons.”
    His giggling whisper caught Sarah’s attention, but before she could ask him in a stern voice to please repeat what he had just suggested, as well as name the four great ancient monarchies (the answer was the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian and the Roman - Sarah had taught it to them yesterday), there was a knock at the door, and Reverend Hobson poked his befuddled-looking face into the room.
    “I am terribly sorry to interrupt,” he said, with some hesitancy. “But might I have a word with you, Mrs. Foster?”
    “Of course!”
    Sarah left her needle and thread in Mary’s custody.
    “You may instruct Jack in the art of the button hole,” she said, to Mary, and to the children in general: “Do try to be good while I am gone.”
    In the cluttered sitting room - which 200 years into the future would become the gypsy caravan and encampment display - Mrs. Hobson sat by the fireplace, nursing her youngest child - a bad-tempered infant born three months earlier, in the middle of a gale - while twin three-year-old girls played with wooden blocks at her feet.
    Reverend Hobson escorted Sarah into the room, and searched - unsuccessfully - for a chair that was not occupied by a person or a sleeping cat or something damp that had been hung up to dry.
    “Oh dear.”
    He mopped his forehead with a large white handkerchief while Sarah remained standing by the door.
    “I am afraid I have dreadful news, Mrs. Foster. Well - not so dreadful for Mrs. Hobson and myself - but terribly inconvenient for you.”
    He glanced at Mrs. Hobson, who smiled back, benevolently.
    “I - we - are being assigned to another parish. There. I’ve said it. Oh dear.”
    “Great Missenden,” Mrs. Hobson provided, disconnecting the infant from her breast. “Buckinghamshire.”
    “We are promised a very large house,” the Reverend added, hastily.
    Sarah looked first at Reverend Hobson, and then at his wife. And then at the infant, who, rather loudly, was objecting to the interruption of his lunch.
    “Is there no possibility I might continue my employment with you as governess?” she asked, as Mrs. Hobson hastily rearranged herself, connecting the infant to the other breast.
    “My dear, I would have it no other way. But there is a woman who is already in place - she is the unmarried daughter of the Vicar who has, with utmost misfortune, recently departed this life...and so, of course....”
    “Of course,” Sarah said, struggling to maintain her composure. “I understand. And the Vicar who is coming here in your place? Has his wife no need of instruction for their children?”
    Reverend Hobson looked as if he needed very badly to relieve himself. “The Very Reverend Hopkirk is advanced in years. As I understand it, Mrs. Hopkirk has produced eleven offspring, nine of them surviving infancy...but alas, dear Mrs. Foster, the youngest is herself now a woman close to your own age....”
     “If there is anything we might do for you,” Mrs. Hobson added, quickly, “We shall, of course, provide a reference....”
    “Yes. Thank you. When will you depart?”
    “Rather quickly, I am afraid,” said Reverend Hobson. “It is somewhat of an urgency....”
    “Within the month,” his wife added.
    Sarah’s hand was on the door. “I must return to the children,” she said, quickly, before tears could betray her composure. “As I am more than certain the room has by now descended into chaos.”

#

    The lesson room had indeed become a battleground. Two of the Hobson boys were sitting on top of Jack, who was flat on his back on the floor, objecting loudly, while the third Hobson boy sewed a large wooden button onto the middle of his shirt.
    Meanwhile, Mary and the two Hobson girls had stitched all of their cotton patches together, to make an oddly-shaped packet, which they had filled with Sarah’s sewing accoutrements - and it was now hanging from a nail in the mantle over the fireplace, where it was likely to have been roasted, had there been anything burning.
    Only Tom was uninvolved, lounging in the window seat, sketching a picture of a horse that was not unlike Mr. Deeley’s favourite, Marie-Claire.
    “What,” Sarah demanded, flinging the door open, “is going on in here?”

#

    Some twenty minutes later, Amy walked to the door of the Vicarage, and knocked.
    Mrs. Hobson, still encumbered with her infant (who appeared to have swallowed rather a lot of wind) answered.
    “Hello,” Amy said, with a small wave.
    “Oh dear,” Mrs. Hobson replied, echoing the earlier discomfort of her husband. “We appear to be all at sixes and sevens. But do come in.”
    Amy entered, dodging several of the Hobson children, who, released from their lessons, now raced from room to room, screaming with mischief and causing two alarmed-looking cats to seek shelter under a table.
    A little further along the hallway, Mary stood alone, her face wreathed in tears.
    “Whatever’s the matter?” Amy said, kneeling down to comfort her.
    “I don’t want to go and live in a hayloft like Great Uncle George!” Mary sobbed.
    Amy glanced doubtfully at Sarah, who stood in a nearby doorway, also crying, though rather less obviously.
    “There there, my dear,” said Reverend Hobson, offering her his large, rumpled handkerchief. He turned to Amy. “I am so sorry, my dear. You appear to have arrived at a terribly inopportune moment....”

Read Chapter Five  here.

Read Chapter Six here.

Read Chapter Seven  here.

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