The Ballad of John Clare (17 page)

“Ay John”, said Ann kindly. “It would be a treat for us.”

John looked up from his book, reluctant. He pulled a piece of paper from between the pages of it and unfolded it slowly. He is shy of any audience but the nodding of Ann and Parker urged him on and gave him courage.

“My mind has been turning on the Boswell crew of late and I penned this with them in mind:

To me how wildly pleasing is that scene

Which does present in evening's dusky hour

A group of gypsies center'd on the green

In some warm nook where Boreas has no power

Where sudden starts the quivering blaze behind

Short shrubby bushes nibbl'd by the sheep

That always on these shortsward pastures keep

Now lost now shines now bending with the wind

And now the swarthy sybil kneels reclin'd

With proggling stick she still renews the blaze

Forcing bright sparks to twinkle from the flaze

When this I view the all attentive mind

Will oft exclaim (so strong the scene pervades)

‘Grant me this life, thou spirit of the shades!' ”

There was a pause, then:

“'Tis well enough,” said Parker. “'Tis well enough writ and tidily rhymed John, though to tell you the honest truth, it will never do.”

“Ay,” said Ann. “'Twas prettily spoke John, but not so as any but us would give it the time o' day.”

John's heart was sinking to be kickshawed so harsh.

“The trouble of it is,” said Parker, “you do too much ape the gentleman in your words, they do not speak true as a ballad speaks true.”

“Ay,” said Sophie. “And why say sib …sub …”

“Sybil.” Said John.

“Sybil,” said Sophie. “When all the world knows you mean Lettuce Boswell …though I saw her clear enough John, worriting the fire.”

“And what's wrong with wind, John, for the love of God, it's a word as has served our fathers well enough, and their fathers before ‘em. These fancy words are like dancing monkeys at a fair, that bow and scrape with little tri-corn hats and silken breeches. Speak common speech or not at all.”

John folded up the page and tucked it back into the book. All his malingering doubts seemed now to be well-founded.

“Now read us something from one of your books John, so we can hear how such a job o' work is truly done and set ‘prentice against master.”

John shrugged and leafed through the book, it fell open at a place where he'd tucked a piece of paper between the pages earlier in the year.

“Now grey ey'd hazy eve's begun

To shed her balmy dew –

Insects no longer fear the sun

But come in open view

Now buzzing with unwelcome din

The heedless beetle bangs

Agen the cow-boys dinner tin

That o'er his shoulder hangs

Now from each hedgerow fearless peep

The slowly pacing snails

Betraying their meandering creep

In silver slimy trails

The owls mope out & scouting bats

Begin their giddy rounds

While countless swarms of dancing gnats

Each water pudge surrounds.”

“By God, that is the real thing,” said Parker. “That's what ye should be aiming for John, though I doubt you'll ever hit the target so fair on the bulls-eye as our man here.”

“Ay John,” said Ann with a sigh, “keep trying and who knows but one day you shall be ranked alongside such a one as this …what is his name?”

John closed the book and pointed to the stained spine:

“
Poems
by Robert Burns.”

His parents nodded.

And it was only a short while later that John climbed the stairs to his bed. Soon he was beneath the blankets hugging himself and chuckling into the darkness at his deception, and at the thought that even them as cannot read are held in thrall to the printed page.

*******

November is come. The church bells have rung for All Hallows.

Although the fences are not yet up for the enclosure, the land is being farmed as though they were. Charles Knight's allocation at the eastern edge of Helpston parish is being ploughed by his men. Each pair of horses lower their shaggy heads as the iron blades lift the turf and the mouldering yellow stubble of the baulk gives way to the long lines of dark turned earth, dipping and rising with the folds of the land above the fen, where once the patchwork of furlongs met side to side.

All along the old track there are teams of men digging ditches, planting hedges, breaking and setting stones for what will one day be the Helpston-Glinton Road.

Mary rode Dobbie along the track and watched the seagulls following the ploughs and plundering the soil for riches. As she drew close to the village she saw there was a team of twenty Helpston men working together on the new road. John Clare was amongst them.

“John!”

She called aloud and John looked up, as did nineteen other men.

One of them whispered:

“Now I understand his scribblin' an' scratchin' by God … damned if he ain't pennin' sweet nothings to old Joyce's Mary.”

“As would I if I had the gift and ‘twould make her wriggle out of that riding jacket and settle down upon my knee!”

John straightened and wiped the dirt from his hands against his smock. He walked towards her and she climbed down from the saddle with her basket on her arm.

The foreman, Will Mash, winked at the men:

“Ye've two minutes John Clare, afore I starts dockin' your wage.”

Mary thrust the basket into John's hands:

“Here's liver and onions John, for you and your family. We've more than we can manage.”

As John took the basket she pressed his hand:

“And shall I see you on Sunday?”

“Of course you shall!”

And she was up-saddle and away.

John, red-faced, turned back to his spade, he put the basket down on the verge and was just setting to work when Jem Johnson broke the quiet. He looked at John most solemn:

“Tomorrow, John Clare, I shall speak and you shall be advised and scratch it down upon the page word for word like a magistrate's clerk.”

He put his finger to his palm and made as if to write:

“Dear Mary,” he said. “Meet me tonight at Langley Bush.”

Someone else shouted:

“In one of them hollow trees …”

“In your nightdress …”

“At midnight …”

“And there you shall make the acquaintance of Mr John Thomas …upstanding gentleman of this parish …”

And Jem, who has got the measure of John more than most, raised his eyebrows then:

“And together, Mary, we shall hunt the cuckoo's nest.”

And there was laughter then, even Will Mash guffawed, and poor John stood and grinned and stared at his boots most discomfited. Then Jem began to sing:

“Give me a girl as'll wriggle and'll twist …”

And all the rest joined in:

“At the bottom of the belly lies the cuckoo's nest.”

“All right, all right, back to work.” Shouted Will Mash.

John filled his spade with soil and flung it at Jem, who clapped him on the shoulder.

*******

It had long been dark when John got home with one cut of liver in Mary's basket.

As he drew close to the cottage he saw there was an unaccustomed light flickering in the window. It was a turnip lantern. Sophie had hollowed it out and cut eyes and teeth and set it on the window-sill with a candle inside. John pushed open the door and showed his mother the basket.

“The Joyces are pig-killing and have more than they can eat.”

Parker shook his head and grunted:

“While others go hungry … ‘tis an old story.”

John patted his father's shoulder:

“Go easy … get off your high horse. I gave a piece to Mrs Dolby. They'll go to bed with their stomachs full tonight.”

And Ann carried the liver into the pantry:

“I'd heard Jo Dolby was gone on the parish … maybe that'll cure his thirst … but how will he ever feed those boys on a pauper's pittance? And no doubt Ralph Wormstall has taken him into his employ.”

“Ay,” said Parker, “like the angel of death.”

Soon the black cooking pot was hanging from its iron hook in the chimney and the smell of liver and onions mingled with the smell of scorched turnip from the lid of Sophie's lantern. Ann tapped the pot with her wooden spoon.

“We shall eat like kings and queens tonight.”

Parker had his habitual theme like a bit between his teeth and would not stop worrying at it.

“Joyce, I'll grant you, has a good enough heart when he ain't crossed …but look at the rest of ‘em, Wormstall, Close, Wright …lining their nests at the poor man's expense …And think on poor Wisdom …what d'you suppose he's sinking his teeth into this evening …no pig's liver for him I'll wager.”

Ann snorted:

“As if that gypsy hasn't swallowed enough of our time … he has his life and that's a blessing …”

But then her face softened:

“But I do think of him languishing there …maybe we should keep some meat aside.”

“Ay,” said Parker, “and give the turn-keys a treat.”

He spat into the fire.

“There's little we can do for Wisdom this side of the law … but there are other laws beside the law of the land, Ann … there's God's law …natural law …and the weight of one must be weighed against the weight of another if a man is to rest a-nights with an easy conscience.”

He pulled a glowing ember from the fire and lit his pipe.

*******

When the Clares had eaten their fill of the liver and onion stew and had mopped the gravy from the wooden platters with lumps of bread. And when the platters had been swilled clean beneath the pump, the family settled down again before the fire, all but Parker who walked across to the window, stiff and solemn. He lifted the lid from Sophie's lantern, and gently blew out the flame.

Sophie cried out with indignation:

“Why did you do that?”

Parker's voice was little more than a whisper:

“Sssssh, because all this shrieking Hallowe'en lark of ghouls and ghosties is wrong-headed Sophie. We don't want to frighten away little Bessie this night o' the year.”

Sophie fell silent and lowered her head. John looked into the fire.

Parker returned to the fireside and sat down again. His eyes were wet. He turned to Ann:

“Did you bring a jug of cream from Close's dairy?”

“Of course I did.”

She went to the pantry. She poured the cream into a bowl. She cut some honeycomb, dropped it in and stirred it. She cut some fingers of bread from a loaf. She set bowl and bread onto a platter, carried them back and put them down carefully on the hearthstone.

“There. Sophie, put puss outside! Ay, ‘twas always her favourite, bless her. I can see her now dipping her chubby little fingers into the cream and licking them clean.”

Parker smiled:

“Ay, and dipping the crust in and sucking it, and what a mess she'd make o' herself.”

There was silence for a while, then John said:

“Tell me more about Bessie, for I have forgot her.”

Ann laughed:

“You and she come sliding an' slithering an' yelling an' kicking out into this world, one a-hind the other like two puppies into a basket. Kitty Otter was there as handywoman, and when you was washed she tucked you up side by side in the one cradle.”

“And from that first day,” said Parker, “you was never apart, but tugging at your mammy's bubbies, one to left and one to right, or laying side by side and a-kicking of your legs, and later on crawling and toddling together as though ‘twas an idea shared betwixt and between.”

“And she was such a bonny thing,” said Ann. “Such soft yellow curls that would lift and fall to the breath of my nostrils … And then come that winter of ninety-six when so many went to pauperdom, and we was a-queuing for a few pitiful pence, and John and little Bessie grew so perishing thin …ay, there was no dipping fingers into cream that winter …and then she took the fever. And how we did dab her forehead and wipe her cheek, and borrowed money for a doctor, and Kitty came as well and done what she could …but all to no avail. We had to lay her in the ground that winter in her little coffin that Jonathan Burbridge made and would take no money for.”

Parker and Ann were weeping now.

“And little John so quiet. He shed no tear but was like a lost thing, for a full six month he was in a daze as though he was himself half-gone, and we did fret that he would follow her.”

Parker put his hand on John's shoulder:

“But then the summer came and you did wax like the moon into a sturdy little fellow …and then we was blessed with Sophie …and our sorrows was eclipsed …but never altogether gone, for a soul does not forget.”

Ann turned the wooden platter on the hearthstone so that the bowl was evenly warmed. She called in a voice that was soft and sad and tender in equal measure:

“Come little Bessie Clare, on this night when the dead can walk, come and drink your fill.”

One by one, with no word exchanged they climbed the wooden steps to bed, leaving the food on the hearthstone.

And this morning, Ann came downstairs early, took the platter outside and set it on the cottage steps while it was still dark. Soon enough puss came winding between her legs and lapped up the cream, then Richard Royce's dogs chased her away, swallowed the bread and licked it clean a second time. When Parker, John and Sophie came downstairs no word was spoken of the night before. But on her way to John Close's dairy Sophie gathered a little posey of berries – hip, haw, sloe and early holly – and when she came home at the end of the day she climbed the stairs and laid them tenderly in the little wooden cot where Bessie did use to sleep.