Lucy Ashford - Unbuttoning Miss Matilda

The blacksmith’s forge, Matty always thought, was like a goblin’s cavern, glowing with the heat of the furnace and the glitter of molten metal. In answer to the blacksmith’s question, she shook her head. ‘I’ll not sell him, ever. He’s an old friend, and we won’t be parted.’ Carefully she counted out some coins into the blacksmith’s sooty palm and began to lead Hercules back to the wharf.

Of course, the blacksmith never suspected she was a girl. Nor had that man who’d nearly been felled by those rolling tar barrels a little earlier. She shook her head at the memory; he’d looked like some arrogant ne’er-do-well and he’d taken more notice of Hercules than he had of her. Like most people, he’d assumed Matty was just another local lad and she was fine with that. Yes, thank you very much—just fine.

As Hercules clopped along beside her, she stroked his neck. ‘Pleased with your new shoes, are you, old fellow?’

He nuzzled her neck in reply and she smiled as they walked on past the warehouses to the canal basin.

She had never deliberately set out to deceive people and her long coat and big hat weren’t intended as a disguise—it was just that she found men’s clothes more comfortable, more useful. She was nineteen years old and her full name was Matilda Grey. She’d lived on the canals all her life and as she walked by the moored boats, people stopped what they were doing to greet her. ‘Morning, young Matty! How’s Hercules? Did you get him sorted out at the forge?’

‘Hercules is fine,’ Matty called back. ‘He needed shoeing, of course. But the blacksmith said that now he should be ready for anything.’

Yes, all her canal friends knew she was a girl, but strangers didn’t realise, not unless they got up too close. And she didn’t normally let anybody get too close, no, indeed; she kept her chestnut-brown hair cropped short, she wore a shirt and trousers together with an old coat that reached past her knees and some strong leather boots—no dainty shoes for her. She found it so much easier to dress like that. It helped her to look confident and carefree.

Even though today she felt anything but, because the blacksmith’s fee had reminded her that she only had enough money left for three or maybe four more months of this way of life. This can’t go on, Matty. The bills came in regularly for berthing her boat as well as for Hercules’s stabling and food and that nagging little voice of worry had been wearing away at her for days now. Some day soon either her horse or her boat would have to go. Then what?

She looked around for inspiration, noting that as usual at this time of day the canal basin was packed with boats being laden with grain and timber for the journey north. ‘One boat drawn by a single horse can carry six times as much as a cart pulled by four horses,’ she remembered her father telling her when she was small. ‘Canals are the future, Matty!’

He had died two years ago and recollecting his voice rekindled her sense of loss, together with her fears. Yes, canals might well be the future—but perhaps not for her.

She realised a woman was calling out to her from one of the nearby boats. ‘How’s things, Matty, love? Getting ready for another trip, are you?’

Bess, one of her oldest friends, had a big soapy scrubbing brush in her hand. She was always scrubbing something—her boat, her laundry or her children. ‘I’m making plans, Bess,’ Matty replied. ‘You know?’

‘You and your plans!’ Bess shook her head and tutted, but in her eyes was nothing but kindness. ‘Just be sure to let me and my Daniel know if you need any help, won’t you?’

‘I will. My thanks, Bess.’ And Matty walked on towards her boat, The Wild Rose , where she tethered Hercules close by.

She’d been only three when her mother died and Bess in particular had taken Matty to her heart, cooking meals for her and her father, offering company when it was needed and easing the pain of loss for them both. Matty counted Bess and her husband among her most loyal friends, but Bess would still be watching her, she knew, and just now she needed some privacy. Making for the solitude of her tiny cabin, she dragged off her boots and sat down on the narrow bed.

She still missed her father, so much. An Oxford graduate, he had earned his living by writing articles for historical journals and occasionally giving lectures. He could have made a comfortable living as a tutor, but he loved the canals as much as he loved history—and Matty always suspected that, well educated though he was, he enjoyed the company of the canal folk as much as that of the Oxford men. There was nothing he relished more than to sit by the waterside with fellow travellers on a summer night listening to their tales and he looked after The Wild Rose as well as any true bargeman, seeing to the tarring and caulking, retouching the paint and polishing the brass work all by himself. From an early age Matty would follow him around, saying, ‘Let me help, Papa!’

‘We’ll do it together,’ he used to say.

Of course, the loss of his wife was a sharp grief, but he’d found a kind of peace, Matty always believed, in travelling with his young daughter from one town to another along the waterways. And everywhere they stopped, he would explore the surrounding countryside for old battle sites or castle ruins. Sometimes, her father unearthed valuable relics—though since the last thing he wanted was to make money out of them, he often gave his finds to museums or to other scholars to assist with their research. ‘Our treasure hunter,’ the canal folk liked to call him proudly.

From time to time Matty heard strangers whisper that it was a lonely and unnatural way of life for her father to inflict on his daughter, but in those days Matty was never lonely, for she had all of the canal community as her family. The women took special care of her and did what mothers do, explaining about growing up, giving her dark warnings about men—and oh, how they yelled at their own sons if they were too familiar with her! ‘Don’t you try anything with our Matty! She’s special, d’you hear?’

It was indeed a special life with her father on The Wild Rose. In the summer months he taught her all about the birds who lived by the canals, the flowers and the water creatures; while on winter nights, when often the water on the canals would freeze over, they’d sit snug in their cabin and he told her enthralling tales of times gone by. He taught her practical things, too, like how to look after the boat and navigate the locks or how to make sure she was never cheated by the innkeepers or blacksmiths. Matty had grown up both capable and knowledgeable—and it was just as well, because two years ago her father had suddenly died.

‘A heart attack,’ the doctor had told her gravely. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself in any way, my dear. There was clearly nothing you could do.’

Her friends had gathered round after the funeral and offered their advice. ‘Maybe now’s the time to give up the boat, Matty, and consider another life.’

They were anxious about her, she knew. ‘A girl her age, on her own in a boat,’ she’d heard them whisper. ‘It’s not right. Not safe.’ More than anything, it was becoming unaffordable—but what other kind of life could she possibly consider, after living so long with the freedom of the waterways?

For the last two years, she’d earned occasional money by carrying light loads on her boat for short distances only, taking on parcels of fabric or chinaware or other delicate goods. Hercules might be old, but he was also well trained—he knew exactly how to plod calmly along the towpath without starting at a flock of ducks or shying at an oncoming barge, while Matty, manning the tiller, dreamed of travelling farther some day and finding the lost treasure her father thought he was close to discovering only days before he died.