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The Shuttle Chapter 20 - Things Occur in Stornham Village · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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  Speaker 1: CHAPTER XX. THINGS OCCUR IN STORNHAM VILLAGE It would not
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  Speaker 1: have been possible for Miss Vanderpool to remain long in
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  Speaker 1: social seclusion in London, and before many days had passed,
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  Speaker 1: Stornham Village was enlivened by the knowledge that her ladyship
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  Speaker 1: and her sister had returned to the court. It was
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  Speaker 1: also evident that their visit to London had not been
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  Speaker 1: made to no purpose. The stagnation of the waters of
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  Speaker 1: village life threatened to become a whirlpool. A respectable person,
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  Speaker 1: who was to be her ladyship's maid, had come with them,
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  Speaker 1: and her ladyship had not been served by a personal
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  Speaker 1: attendant for years. Her ladyship had also appeared at the
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  Speaker 1: dinner-table in new garments, and with her hair done as
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  Speaker 1: other ladies wore theirs. She looked like a different woman,
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  Speaker 1: and actually had a bit of colour, and was beginning
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  Speaker 1: to lose her frightened way. Now it dawned upon even
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  Speaker 1: the dullest and least active mind that something had begun
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  Speaker 1: to stir. It had been felt vaguely when the new
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  Speaker 1: young lady from America had walked through the village street
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  Speaker 1: and had drawn people to doors and windows by her
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  Speaker 1: mere passing. After the return from London the signs of
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  Speaker 1: activities were such as made the villagers catch their breaths
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  Speaker 1: in uttering uncertain exclamations, and caused the feminine element to
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  Speaker 1: catch up offspring, or dragging it by its hand, run
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  Speaker 1: into neighbours' cottages and stand talking the incredible thing over
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  Speaker 1: in lowered and rather breathless voices. yet the incredible thing
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  Speaker 1: in question was had it been seen from the standpoint
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  Speaker 1: of more prosperous villages anything but extraordinary in entirely rural
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  Speaker 1: places the castle the hall or the manor the great
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  Speaker 1: house in short still retain somewhat of the old feudal
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  Speaker 1: power to bestow benefits or withhold them wealth and good-will
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  Speaker 1: at the manor supply work and resultant comfort in the
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  Speaker 1: village and its surrounding holdings patronized by the great house
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  Speaker 1: the two or three small village shops bestir themselves and
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  Speaker 1: awaken to activity The blacksmith swings his hammer with renewed
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  Speaker 1: spirit over the numerous jobs the gentry's stables, carriage-houses, garden tools,
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  Speaker 1: and household repairs give to him. The carpenter mends and makes.
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  Speaker 1: The vicarage feels at ease, realizing that its church and
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  Speaker 1: its charities do not stand unsupported. Small farmers and larger ones,
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  Speaker 1: under a rich and interested landlord, thrive and are able
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  Speaker 1: to hold their own even against the tricks of wind
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  Speaker 1: and weather. Farm labourers being, as a result, certain of
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  Speaker 1: steady and decent wage, trudge to and fro with stolid cheerfulness,
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  Speaker 1: knowing that the pot boils and the children's feet are shod.
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  Speaker 1: Superannuated old men and women are sure of their broth
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  Speaker 1: and Sunday dinner, and their dread of the impending union
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  Speaker 1: fades away. The squire, or my lord, or my lady,
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  Speaker 1: can be depended upon to care for their old bones
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  Speaker 1: until they are laid under the sod in the green churchyard.
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  Speaker 1: with wealth and good-will at the great house life warms
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  Speaker 1: and offers prospects there are christmas feasts and gifts and
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  Speaker 1: village treats and the big carriage or the smaller ones
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  Speaker 1: stop at cottage doors and at once confer exciting distinction
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  Speaker 1: and carry good cheer but stornham village had scarcely a
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  Speaker 1: remote memory of any period of such prosperity it had
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  Speaker 1: not existed even in the older sir nigel's time and
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  Speaker 1: certainly the presence of Nigel's reign had been marked only
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  Speaker 1: by neglect, ill-temper, indifference, and a falling into disorder and decay.
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  Speaker 1: Farms were poorly worked, labourers were unemployed, there was no
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  Speaker 1: trade from the manor household, no carriages, no horses, no company,
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  Speaker 1: no spending of money. Cottages leaked, floors were damp, the
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  Speaker 1: church roof itself was falling to pieces, and the vicar
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  Speaker 1: had nothing to give. The helpless and old cottagers were
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  Speaker 1: carried to the Union, and dying there were buried by
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  Speaker 1: the stinted parish in parish coffins her ladyship had not
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  Speaker 1: visited the cottages since her child's birth and now such
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  Speaker 1: inspiriting events as were everyday happenings in lucky places like
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  Speaker 1: westerbridge and rutscham and yankford showed signs of being about
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  Speaker 1: to occur in stornham itself to begin with even before
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  Speaker 1: the journey to london Kedgers had made two or three
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  Speaker 1: visits to the clock, and had been in a communicative mood.
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  Speaker 1: He had related the story of the morning when he
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  Speaker 1: had looked up from his work, and had found the
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  Speaker 1: strange young lady standing before him, with the result that
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  Speaker 1: he had been struck all of an heap. And then
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  Speaker 1: he had given a detailed account of their walk around
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  Speaker 1: the place, and of the way in which he had
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  Speaker 1: looked at things and asked questions, such as would have
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  Speaker 1: done credit to a man with an head on him.' Nay, nay,'
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  Speaker 1: commented Kedgers, shaking his own head doubtfully, even while with admiration,
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  Speaker 1: I've never seen the like before in young women, neither
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  Speaker 1: in lady young women nor in them that's otherwise. Afterwards
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  Speaker 1: had transpired the story of Mrs. Noakes in the kitchen grate, Mrs.
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  Speaker 1: Noakes having a friend in Miss Lupin, the village dressmaker.
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  Speaker 1: I'd not put it past her, was Mrs. Noakes summing up,
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  Speaker 1: to order a new one, I wouldn't. The footman in
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  Speaker 1: the shabby livery had been a little wild in his statements,
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  Speaker 1: being rendered so by the admiring and excited state of
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  Speaker 1: his mind. He dwelt upon the matter of her looks,
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  Speaker 1: and the way she lighted up the dingy dining-room, and
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  Speaker 1: so conversed that a man found himself listening and glancing
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  Speaker 1: when it was his business to be an unhearing, unseeing
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  Speaker 1: piece of mechanism. Such simple records of Servitor's impressions were
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  Speaker 1: quite enough for Stornham Village, and produced in it a
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  Speaker 1: sense of being roused a little from sleep to listen
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  Speaker 1: to distant and uncomprehended but not unagreeable sounds one morning
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  Speaker 1: buttle the carpenter looked up as kedgers had done and
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  Speaker 1: saw standing on the threshold of his shop the tall
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  Speaker 1: young woman who was a sensation and an event in
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  Speaker 1: herself you are the master of this shop she asked
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  Speaker 1: buttle came forward touching his brow in hasty salute yes
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  Speaker 1: my lady he answered joseph buttle your ladyship' I am
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  Speaker 1: Miss Vanderpool,' dismissing the suddenly bestowed title with easy directness.'
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  Speaker 1: Are you busy? I want to talk to you.' No
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  Speaker 1: one had any reason to be busy at any time
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  Speaker 1: in Stornham Village, no such luck, but Buttle did not
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  Speaker 1: smile as he replied that he was at liberty and
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  Speaker 1: placed himself at his visitor's disposal. The tall young lady
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  Speaker 1: came into the little shop and took the chair respectfully
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  Speaker 1: offered to her. Buttle saw her eyes sweep the place
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  Speaker 1: as if taking in its resources.' I want to talk
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  Speaker 1: to you about some work which must be done at
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  Speaker 1: the court,' she explained at once.' I want to know
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  Speaker 1: how much can be done by workmen of the village.
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  Speaker 1: How many men have you?'' How many men had he?'
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  Speaker 1: Buttle wavered between gratification at its being supposed that he
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  Speaker 1: had men under him, and grumpy depression because the illusion
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  Speaker 1: must be dispelled.' There' s me and Sim Sones, miss,' he answered.'
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  Speaker 1: No more and no less.'' Where can you get more?'
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  Speaker 1: asked Miss Vanderpool.' It could not be denied that Buttle
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  Speaker 1: received a mental shock which verged in its suddenness on
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  Speaker 1: being almost a physical one. The promptness and decision of
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  Speaker 1: such a query swept him off his feet. That Sim
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  Speaker 1: Soames and himself should be an insufficient force to combat
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  Speaker 1: with such repairs as the court could afford was an
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  Speaker 1: idea presenting an aspect of unheard-of novelty, but that methods
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  Speaker 1: as coolly radical as those this questioning implied should be
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  Speaker 1: resorted to were staggering.' Me and Sim has always done
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  Speaker 1: what work was done,' he stammered. It hasn't been much.'
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  Speaker 1: Miss Vanderpool neither assented to nor dissented from this last
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  Speaker 1: palpable truth. She regarded Buttle with searching eyes. She was
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  Speaker 1: wondering if any practical ability concealed itself behind his dullness.
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  Speaker 1: If she gave him work, could he do it? If
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  Speaker 1: she gave the whole village work, was it too far
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  Speaker 1: gone in its unspurred stodginess to be roused to carrying
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  Speaker 1: it out?' There is a great deal to be done now,'
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  Speaker 1: she said.' All that can be done in the village
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  Speaker 1: should be done here.' It seems to me that the
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  Speaker 1: villagers want work, new work, do they? Work, new work!
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  Speaker 1: The spark of life in her steady eyes actually lighted
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  Speaker 1: a spark in the being of Joe Buttle. Young ladies
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  Speaker 1: in villages, gentry, usually visited the cottages a bit if
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  Speaker 1: they were well-meaning young women, left good books and broth
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  Speaker 1: or jelly, potted about and were seen at church and
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  Speaker 1: playing croquet, and finally married and removed to other places,
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  Speaker 1: or gradually faded year by year into respectable spinsterhood. and
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  Speaker 1: this one comes in and in two or three minutes
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  Speaker 1: shows that she knows things about the place and understands.
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  Speaker 1: A man might then take it for granted that she
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  Speaker 1: would understand the thing he daringly gathered courage to say.
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  Speaker 1: They want any work, miss, that they are sure of
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  Speaker 1: decent pay for, sure of it. She did understand, and
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  Speaker 1: she did not treat his implication as an impertinence. She
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  Speaker 1: saw it was not intended as one, and indeed she
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  Speaker 1: saw in it a sort of earnest of a possible
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  Speaker 1: practical quality in Buttle. Such work as the court had
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  Speaker 1: demanded had remained unpaid for with quiet persistence, until even
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  Speaker 1: bills had begun to lag and fall off. She could
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  Speaker 1: see exactly how it had been done, and comprehended quite
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  Speaker 1: clearly a lack of enthusiasm in the presence of orders
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  Speaker 1: from the great house.' All work will be paid for,'
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  Speaker 1: she said.' Each week the workmen will receive their wages.
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  Speaker 1: They may be sure. I will be responsible.'' Thank you, miss,'
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  Speaker 1: said Buttle, and he half unconsciously touched his forehead again.
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  Speaker 1: In a place like this, the young lady went on
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  Speaker 1: in her mellow voice, and with a reflective thoughtfulness in
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  Speaker 1: her handsome eyes, on an estate like Stornham, no work
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  Speaker 1: that can be done by the villagers should be done
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  Speaker 1: by anyone else. The people of the land should be
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  Speaker 1: trained to do such work as the manor-house or cottages
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  Speaker 1: or farms require to have done. How did she think
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  Speaker 1: that out? was Buttle's reflection. In places such as Stornham,
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  Speaker 1: through generation after generation, The thing she had just said
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  Speaker 1: was accepted as law, clung to as a possession, any
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  Speaker 1: divergence from it being a grievance sullenly and bitterly grumbled over.
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  Speaker 1: And in places enough there was divergence in these days,
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  Speaker 1: the gentry sending to London for things and having up
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  Speaker 1: workmen to do their best paying jobs for them. The
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  Speaker 1: law had been so long a law that no village
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  Speaker 1: could see justice in outsiders being sent for, either. to
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  Speaker 1: do work they could not do well themselves. It showed
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  Speaker 1: what she was, this handsome young woman, even though she
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  Speaker 1: did come from America, that she should know what was right.
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  Speaker 1: She took a notebook out and opened it on the
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  Speaker 1: rough table before her.' I have made some notes here,'
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  Speaker 1: she said,' and a sketch or two. We must talk
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  Speaker 1: them over together.' If she had given Joe Buttle cause
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  Speaker 1: for surprise at the outset, she gave him further cause
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  Speaker 1: during the next half-hour. The work that was to be
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  Speaker 1: done was such as made him open his eyes and
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  Speaker 1: draw in his breath. If he was to be allowed
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  Speaker 1: to do it, if he could do it, if it
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  Speaker 1: was to be paid for, it struck him that he
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  Speaker 1: would be a man set up for life. If her
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  Speaker 1: ladyship had come and ordered it to be done, he
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  Speaker 1: would have thought the poor thing had gone mad. but
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  Speaker 1: this one had it all jotted down in a clear
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  Speaker 1: hand without the least feminine confusion of detail, and with
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  Speaker 1: here and there a little sharply drawn sketch, such as
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  Speaker 1: a carpenter, if he could draw, which Buttle could not,
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  Speaker 1: might have made.' There' s not workman enough in the village
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  Speaker 1: to do it in a year, miss,' he said at last,
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  Speaker 1: with a gasp of disappointment. She thought it over a minute,
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  Speaker 1: her pencil poised in her hand and her eyes on
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  Speaker 1: his face. Can you, she said, undertake to get men
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  Speaker 1: from other villages and superintend what they do? If you
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  Speaker 1: can do that, the work is still passing through your hands,
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  Speaker 1: and Stornham will reap the benefit of it. Your workmen
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  Speaker 1: will lodge at the cottages and spend part of their
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  Speaker 1: wages at the shops, and you who are a Stornham
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  Speaker 1: workman will earn the money to be made out of
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  Speaker 1: a rather large contract. Joe Buttle became quite hot. If
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  Speaker 1: you have brought up a family for years on the
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  Speaker 1: proceeds of such jobs as driving a tenpenny nail in
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  Speaker 1: here or there—' tinkering a hole in a cottage roof,
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  Speaker 1: knocking up a shelf in the vicarage kitchen,' and mending
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  Speaker 1: a panel of fence.' To be suddenly confronted with a
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  Speaker 1: proposal to engage workmen and undertake contracts' is shortening to
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  Speaker 1: the breath and heating to the blood.' Miss,' he said,'
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  Speaker 1: we' ve never done big jobs, Sim-Somes and me.' Perhaps we're
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  Speaker 1: not up to it, but it'd be a fortune to us.''
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  Speaker 1: She was looking down at one of her papers and
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  Speaker 1: making pencil marks on it. You did some work last
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  Speaker 1: year on a little house at Tidhurst, didn't you? she said.
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  Speaker 1: To think of her knowing that! Yes, the unaccountable good
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  Speaker 1: luck had actually come to him, that two Tidhurst carpenters,
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  Speaker 1: falling ill of the same typhoid at the same time,
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  Speaker 1: through living side by side in the same order of
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  Speaker 1: insanitary cottage, he and Sim had been given their work
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  Speaker 1: to finish and had done their best. Yes, miss, he answered.
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  Speaker 1: I heard that when I was inquiring about you. I
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  Speaker 1: drove over to Tidhurst to see the work, and it
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  Speaker 1: was very sound and well done. If you did that,
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  Speaker 1: I can at least trust you to do something at
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  Speaker 1: the court which will prove to me what you're equal to.
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  Speaker 1: I want a Stornham man to undertake this.'' No Tidhurst man,'
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  Speaker 1: said Joe Buttle, with sudden courage.' Nor yet no Barnhurst,
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  Speaker 1: nor yet no Yangford, nor Ratcham shall do it if
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  Speaker 1: I can look it in the face. It's Stornham work,
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  Speaker 1: and Stornham had ought to have it. It gives me
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  Speaker 1: a brace up to ear of it.' The tall young
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  Speaker 1: lady laughed beautifully and got up. Come to the court
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  Speaker 1: tomorrow morning at ten and we will look it over together,
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  Speaker 1: she said. Good morning, Buttle. And she went away. In
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  Speaker 1: the tap-room of the clock, when Joe Buttle dropped in
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  Speaker 1: for his pot of beer, he found Fox the saddler
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  Speaker 1: and Tread the blacksmith, and each of them fell upon
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  Speaker 1: the others with something of the same story to tell.
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  Speaker 1: The new young lady from the court had been to
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  Speaker 1: see them, too, and had brought to each her definite
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  Speaker 1: little notebook. Harness was to be repaired and furbished up,'
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  Speaker 1: The big carriage and the old phaeton were to be
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  Speaker 1: put in order,' and Master Uhtred's cart was to be
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  Speaker 1: given new paint and springs.' This is what she said,'
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  Speaker 1: Fox's story ran,' and she said it so straightforward and
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  Speaker 1: businesslike' that the conceitedest man that lived couldn't be upset
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  Speaker 1: by it.' I want to see what you can do,'
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  Speaker 1: she says.' I' m new to the place, and I must
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  Speaker 1: find out what everyone can do.' Then I shall know
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  Speaker 1: what to do myself.'' The way she sets them eyes
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  Speaker 1: on a man is a sight,'' It' s the sense in
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  Speaker 1: them and their human nature that takes you.'' Yes, it's
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  Speaker 1: the sense,' said Tread,' and her looking at you as
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  Speaker 1: if she expected you to have sense yourself' and understand
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  Speaker 1: that she's doing fair business.' It' s clear-headed like, her asking
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  Speaker 1: questions' and finding out what Stornham men can do.' She' s
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  Speaker 1: having the old things done up so that she can
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  Speaker 1: find out' and so that she can prove that the
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  Speaker 1: court work is going to be paid for.' That' s my belief.'
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  Speaker 1: But what does it all mean? said Joe Buttle, setting
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  Speaker 1: his pot of beer down on the taproom table round
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  Speaker 1: which they sat in conclave. Where's the money coming from?
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  Speaker 1: There's money somewhere. Tread was the advanced thinker of the village.
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  Speaker 1: He had come through reverses from a bigger place. He
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  Speaker 1: read the newspapers. It'll come from where it's got a
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  Speaker 1: way of coming, he gave forth portentously. It'll come from America.
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  Speaker 1: How they managed to get hold of so much of
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  Speaker 1: it there is past me. but they've got it, dang'em,
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  Speaker 1: and they're ready to spend it for what they want,
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  Speaker 1: though they're a sharp lot. Twelve years ago there was
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  Speaker 1: a good bit of talk about her ladyship's father being
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  Speaker 1: one of them with the fullest pockets. She came here
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  Speaker 1: with plenty, but Sir Nigel got hold of it for
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  Speaker 1: his games, and they're the games that cost money. Her
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  Speaker 1: ladyship wasn't born with a backbone, poor thing, but this
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  Speaker 1: new one was, and her ladyship's father is her father,
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  Speaker 1: and you bark my words there's money coming into Stornham,
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  Speaker 1: though it's not going to be played the fool with. Lord, yes,
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  Speaker 1: this new one has a backbone, and good strong wrists
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  Speaker 1: and a good strong head, though I must say, with
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  Speaker 1: a little masculine chuckle of admission, it's a bit unnatural
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  Speaker 1: with them eyelashes and them eyes looking at you between them,
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  Speaker 1: like blue water between rushes in the marsh. Before the
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  Speaker 1: next twenty-four hours had passed a still more unlooked-for event
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  Speaker 1: had taken place. Long outstanding bills had been paid, and
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  Speaker 1: in as matter-of-fact a manner as if they had not
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  Speaker 1: been sent in and ignored in some cases for years.
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  Speaker 1: The settlement of Joe Buttle's account sent him to bed
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  Speaker 1: at the day's end almost sliced-headed. To become suddenly the
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  Speaker 1: possessor of thirty-seven pounds, fifteen and ten pence ha'penny, of
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  Speaker 1: which all hope had been lost three years ago, was
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  Speaker 1: almost too much for any man. Six pounds, eight pounds,
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  Speaker 1: ten pounds, came into places as if sovereigns had been
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  Speaker 1: sixpences and shillings farthings. More than one cottage woman, at
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  Speaker 1: the sight of the hoarded wealth in her staring goodman's hand,
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  Speaker 1: gulped and began to cry. If they had had it before,
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  Speaker 1: and in driblets, it would have been spent long since. Now,
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  Speaker 1: in a lump, it meant shoes and petticoats and tea
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  Speaker 1: and sugar in temporary abundance, and the sense of this
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  Speaker 1: abundance was felt to be entirely due to American magic.
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  Speaker 1: America was, in fact, greatly lauded and discussed, the case
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  Speaker 1: of George Lumsden being much quoted. End of chapter 20