Alison Case - Nelly Dean

‘Nelly,’ she called out, ‘come out here, my dear, and take these three into the barn. My, that was weary work! I thought to have been here hours ago, but these ladies won’t be hurried – balky as mules, they were.’ Despite her weariness, she was shaking her head and laughing as she spoke. Meanwhile Mrs Earnshaw had hurried out, wrapping a shawl around her as she came, and keeping up a steady stream of excited talk.

‘Mary, there you are at last! And your ladies, too – is this Rosalind? Ah, you didn’t think I’d recognize her, did you? But I remember her clear as yesterday – the prettiest heifer in all the barn she was, with those long legs and that little star on her forehead, when I picked her out to be your wedding present. And my, what a beauty she has grown into. You say she’s your best milker still, after all these years? You see I haven’t lost my eye for a good cow, at any rate.’

‘No you certainly haven’t, and not a day passes that I don’t thank you for her: Rosie’s been a rare treasure to me in the dairy. And so good-natured! She’s still as an owl for the milking, and an angel for temperament always: I don’t think she’s ever kicked in her whole life. These two here are her daughters, Vi and Feely – Viola and Ophelia, that is – you see I’ve kept up our old practice. Reenie – that’s Marina – is back at home. She’s Rosie’s granddaughter, and bids fair to be her equal, but she’ll go with me to Brassing.’

‘Oh Mary, must you really go? Brassing is so far away, and I can’t bear to think of you being gone so long.’ The mistress was pulling my mother towards the house as she spoke.

‘Come now, Helen, you wouldn’t have me neglect my duty to Tom, would you? The poor fellow is living in paid lodgings, and eating Heaven-knows-what: tallow in the butter, chalk in the milk, and the last time the landlady served goose, it tasted so foul, he thought it must be a vulture! He was half minded to demand to see the feet, he said. And I’ll only be gone until spring – I’ll be back before you’ve noticed I’m gone.’ With suchlike jollyings and reassurances, my mother led the mistress back to the house, while I turned away to attend to the cows, awkwardly shooing them towards the barn. I actually had little to do with managing livestock at the Heights – the produce of the dairy was more my department than its four-footed inhabitants – so I was in some difficulties, until Joseph spied me and came running over.

‘What are ye up to, ye daft hinny? That’s no way to move cattle – ye’ll only get them into a fright, and have them trampling all the beds.’ He snatched the stick from my hands and, with a sequence of light taps, accompanied by deep cooing noises, soon had the cows moving into the barn.

‘Do you know where they’re to go?’ I asked, trying to sound as if I knew myself.

‘A-course I do – wasn’t it left to me to ready the stalls for them? An’ it’ll be left to me to find fodder for them too, I suppose. Feeding three for the milk of one – that’s a bad bargain the maister’s made – but he always did make bad bargains wi’ womanites, and yon canny witch is the warst on ’em.’

I had turned away before Joseph shot this parting bolt, but I turned to call back at him: ‘It’s nothing to the bad bargain you’d be to any “womanite” foolish enough to look twice at a sour-tempered, monkey-faced dwarf like you!’ I regretted it the moment I’d said it, of course. Not for its unkindness, which was well deserved, but because Joseph was forever trying to provoke me to lash out at him, so that he could denounce me to the master for ill temper and insubordination, and I had been trying to school myself to ignore him, or at least respond with no more than dignified silence and scornful looks. Now he had just what he wanted, and was gleefully working himself up into a hopping rage before running to report to the master: ‘Hoo, listen to the little hussy – she’s as bad as her mother – nay worse, for talking evil to her elders and betters. The maister shall hear of this – he’ll turn you out, this time, he will, for sure. It’s too long he’s put up with your insolence and bad ways, but now he’ll see, now he’ll see what she’s really made of, witch bastard that she is.’

I was almost at the house by now, using up all my little stock of self-control not to reply, or give any sign that his words affected me. ‘Witch bastard’ was one of his favourite epithets for me, combining as it did aspersions on my character, my mother’s, and the circumstances of my birth, and it usually got a response from me when nothing else could, but today I did no more than slam the kitchen door behind me and commence chopping onions with a fury, both to vent my anger, and to provide some cover for the tears that were sure to follow.

Hearing the slam and subsequent racket, my mother came into the kitchen.

‘Have you got the cows settled in, Nelly?’ she asked, but then seeing my face, ‘Whatever is the matter, Nell? You’re red as beef – and here, if you don’t slow down with that knife you’ll lose a finger for sure. Put it down, now. Good heavens, child, you’ve chopped enough onions to stew a whole ox! What brought this on?’

I did not trust myself yet for a full reply, and said only ‘Joseph’. But that was a full enough explanation for anyone who knew the household as well as my mother did.

‘I might have known,’ she said – and then, seeing me about to elaborate, ‘No, don’t tell me what he said. I’m sure it was not worth hearing, let alone repeating. And I suppose you replied in kind?’ I nodded, shamefaced. ‘Well, he’ll carry that to the master, for sure. How many times have I told you to leave him be? Just because someone pours gunpowder in your ear, there’s no need for you to set a spark to it. And the worst punishment you can give that old fool is to ignore him when he starts ranting at you.’

‘He called me “witch bastard”,’ I burst out in spite of myself. Her face went still.

‘Did he now?’ she said quietly, and then looked at me for a bit in silence. Then she gave herself a little shake, and said, ‘Don’t you think any more about it, Nell. You’re not a bastard, and as for “witch”, Joseph thinks all women are witches – except perhaps his sister, who’s as dried up and miserable as he is himself. So pay no mind to what he says, and he’ll soon tire of provoking you. Now, then, what about my cattle?’

‘Joseph put them away – he knew where they were to go. Do you think he’ll mistreat them?’

‘If they were only my cows, I have no doubt he would drive them into the nearest bog – but I’ve been careful to arrange things so that it’s in the master’s interest for them to be well looked after, and Joseph knows it. Oh, he’ll grumble about them, and at them too, most like, but he’ll do all he can to be sure that Rosie gives good milk all winter and Feelie and Vi both bear healthy calves.’

‘He said it was a bad bargain the master made,’ I couldn’t resist adding.

‘And would have said the same if I were paying their weight in gold,’ my mother replied. ‘Now I’m serious, Nell, pay no mind to what Joseph says. And you are not to carry me any more tales about him. Do you understand?’

I nodded, and the subject was dropped. But I have reason to believe she spoke to the master on the subject, for, though Joseph continued to mutter that I was a witch, he never again called me a bastard, nor did he ever refer to my mother by any worse name than ‘Mrs Dean’ or ‘your mother’ – though he contrived to throw into the latter enough scorn that you would have thought there was no worse title to be had.

My mother would have liked to return home that evening, not wanting to leave even Reenie’s milking to the neighbour’s boy she had left in charge, but night was falling by the time all was settled at the Heights, and the night being moonless and cloudy to boot, it was of that inky blackness wherein you cannot see your own feet, let alone the path ahead. So she was persuaded to spend the night with us. The mistress was all for making up the guest bed for her, but my mother would not hear of it, and insisted on sharing my little bed instead. So I was very warm that night, sleeping in her arms for the first time since I was a little child. In the morning she kissed me goodbye, and promised to write to me and the mistress both, and the mistress cried heartily, and I cried a little, too, as we watched her disappear over the nearest rise.