Lark Rise, Flora Thompson [most life changing books .TXT] 📗

new yellow stacks and, over all, the mellow sunshine

of late summer.

 

Passers-by on the road stopped their gigs and high dogcarts to wave

greetings and shout congratulations on the weather. If a tramp looked

wistfully in, he was beckoned to a seat on the straw beneath a rick and

a full plate was placed on his knees. It was a picture of plenty and

goodwill.

 

It did not do to look beneath the surface. Laura’s father, who did not

come into the picture, being a ‘tradesman’ and so not invited, used to

say that the farmer paid his men starvation wages all the year and

thought he made it up to them by giving that one good meal. The farmer

did not think so, because he did not think at all, and the men did not

think either on that day; they were too busy enjoying the food and the

fun.

 

After the dinner there were sports and games, then dancing in the home

paddock until twilight, and when, at the end of the day, the farmer,

carving indoors for the family supper, paused with knife poised to

listen to the last distant ‘Hooray!’ and exclaimed, ‘A lot of good

chaps! A lot of good chaps, God bless ‘em!’ both he and the cheering men

were sincere, however mistaken.

 

But these modest festivals which had figured every year in everybody’s

life for generations were eclipsed in 1887 by Queen Victoria’s Golden

Jubilee.

 

Up to the middle of the ‘eighties the hamlet had taken little interest

in the Royal House. The Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales were

sometimes mentioned, but with little respect and no affection. ‘The old

Queen’, as she was called, was supposed to have shut herself up in

Balmoral Castle with a favourite servant named John Brown and to have

refused to open Parliament when Mr. Gladstone begged her to. The Prince

was said to be leading a gay life, and the dear, beautiful Princess,

afterwards Queen Alexandra, was celebrated only for her supposed

make-up.

 

By the middle of the decade a new spirit was abroad and had percolated

to the hamlet. The Queen, it appeared, had reigned fifty years. She had

been a good queen, a wonderful queen, she was soon to celebrate her

jubilee, and, still more exciting, they were going to celebrate it, too,

for there was going to be a big ‘do’ in which three villages would join

for tea and sports and dancing and fireworks in the park of a local

magnate. Nothing like it had ever been known before.

 

As the time drew nearer, the Queen and her jubilee became the chief

topic of conversation. The tradesmen gave lovely coloured portraits of

her in her crown and garter ribbon on their almanacks, most of which

were framed at home and hung up in the cottages. Jam could be bought in

glass jugs adorned with her profile in hobnails and inscribed ‘1837 to

1887. Victoria the Good’, and, underneath, the national catchword of the

moment: ‘Peace and Plenty.’ The newspapers were full of the great

achievements of her reign: railway travel, the telegraph, Free Trade,

exports, progress, prosperity, Peace: all these blessings, it appeared,

were due to her inspiration.

 

Of most of these advantages the hamlet enjoyed but Esau’s share; but, as

no one reflected upon this, it did not damp the general enthusiasm.

‘Fancy her reigning fifty years, the old dear, her!’ they said, and

bought paper banners inscribed ‘Fifty Years, Mother, Wife, and Queen’ to

put inside their window panes. ‘God Bless Her. Victoria the Good. The

Mother of Her People.’

 

Laura was lucky enough to be given a bound volume of Good Words—or

was it Home Words?—in which the Queen’s own journal, _Leaves From Her

Majesty’s Life in the Highlands_, ran as a serial. She galloped through

all the instalments immediately to pick out the places mentioned by her

dear Sir Walter Scott. Afterwards the journal was re-read many times, as

everything was re-read in that home of few books. Laura liked the

journal, for although the Queen kept to the level of meals and drives

and seasickness and the ‘civility’ of her hosts and hostesses, and only

mentioned the scenery (Scott’s scenery!) to repeat what ‘Albert said’

about it—and he always compared it to some foreign scene—there was a

forthright sincerity about the writing which revealed a human being

behind all the glitter and fuss.

 

By the end of May everybody was talking about the weather. Would it be

fine for the great drive through London; and, still more important,

would it be fine for the doings in Skeldon Park? Of course it would be

fine, said the more optimistic. Providence knew what He was about. It

was going to be a glorious June. Queen’s weather, they called it. Hadn’t

the listener heard that the sun always shone when the Queen drove out?

 

Then there were rumours of a subscription fund. The women of England

were going to give the Queen a jubilee present, and, wonder of wonders,

the amount given was not to exceed one penny. ‘Of course we shall give,’

they said proudly. ‘It’ll be our duty an’ our pleasure.’ And when the

time came for the collection to be made they had all of them their

pennies ready. Bright new ones in most cases, for, although they knew

the coins were to be converted into a piece of plate before reaching Her

Majesty, they felt that only new money was worthy of the occasion.

 

The ever-faithful, ever-useful clergyman’s daughter collected the pence.

Thinking, perhaps, that the day after pay-day would be most convenient,

she visited Lark Rise on a Saturday, and Laura, at home from school, was

clipping the garden hedge when she heard one neighbour say to another:

‘I want a bucket of water, but I can’t run round to the well till Miss

Ellison’s been for the penny.’

 

‘Lordy, dear!’ ejaculated the other. ‘Why, she’s been an’ gone this

quarter of an hour. She’s a-been to my place. Didn’t she come to yourn?’

 

The first speaker flushed to the roots of her hair. She was a woman

whose husband had recently had an accident afield and was still in

hospital. There were no Insurance benefits then, and it was known she

was having a hard struggle to keep her home going; but she had her penny

ready and was hurt, terribly hurt, by the suspicion that she had been

purposely passed over.

 

‘I s’pose, because I be down on me luck, she thinks I ain’t worth a

penny,’ she cried, and went in and banged the door.

 

‘There’s temper for you!’ the other woman exclaimed to the world at

large and went about her own business. But Laura was distressed. She had

seen Mrs. Parker’s expression and could imagine how her pride was hurt.

She, herself, hated to be pitied. But what could she do about it?

 

She went to the gate. Miss Ellison had finished collecting and was

crossing the allotments on her way home. Laura would just have time to

run the other way round and meet her at the stile. After a struggle with

her own inward shrinking which lasted about two minutes, but was

ridiculously intense, she ran off on her long, thin legs, and popped up,

like a little jack-in-the-box, on the other side of the stile which the

lady was gathering up her long frilly skirts to mount.

 

‘Oh, please, Miss Ellison, you haven’t been to Mrs. Parker’s, and she’s

got her penny all ready and she wants the Queen to have it so much.’

 

‘But, Laura,’ said the lady loftily, surprised at such interference, ‘I

did not intend to call upon Mrs. Parker to-day. With her husband in

hospital, I know she has no penny to spare, poor soul.’

 

But, although somewhat quelled, Laura persisted: ‘But she’s got it all

polished up and wrapped in tissue paper, Miss Ellison, and ‘twill hurt

her feelings most awful if you don’t go for it, Miss Ellison.’

 

At that, Miss Ellison grasped the situation and retraced her steps,

keeping Laura by her side and talking to her as to another grown-up

person.

 

‘Our dear Queen,’ she was saying as they passed Twister’s turnip patch,

‘our dear, good Queen, Laura, is noted for her perfect tact. Once, and I

have this on good authority, some church workers were invited to visit

her at Osborne. Tea was served in a magnificent drawing-room, the Queen

actually partaking of a cup with them, and this, I am told, is very

unusual—a great honour, in fact; but no doubt she did it to put them at

their ease. But in her confusion, one poor lady, unaccustomed to taking

tea with royalty, had the misfortune to drop her slice of cake on the

floor. Imagine that, Laura, a slice of cake on the Queen’s beautiful

carpet; you can understand how the poor lady must have felt, can’t you

dear? One of the ladies-in-waiting smiled at her discomfiture, which

made her still more nervous and trembling; but our dear Queen—she has

sharp eyes, God bless her!—saw at once how matters stood. She asked for

a slice of cake, then purposely dropped it, and commanded the lady who

had smiled to pick up both pieces at once. Which she did quickly, you

may be sure, Laura, and there were no more smiles. What a lesson! What a

lesson, Laura!’

 

Cynical little Laura wondered for whom the lesson was intended; but she

only said meekly: ‘Yes, indeed, Miss Ellison,’ and this brought them to

Mrs. Parker’s door, where she had the satisfaction of hearing Miss

Ellison say: ‘Oh, dear, Mrs. Parker, I nearly overlooked your house. I

have come for your contribution to the Queen’s jubilee present.’

 

The great day dawned at last and most of the hamlet people were up in

time to see the sun burst in dazzling splendour from the pearly pink

east and mount into a sky unflecked by the smallest cloud. Queen’s

weather, indeed! Arid as the day began it continued. It was very hot;

but nobody minded that, for the best hats could be worn without fear of

showers, and those who had sunshades put by for just such an occasion

could bring them forth in all their glory of deep lace or long,

knotted, silk fringe.

 

By noon all the hamlet children had been scrubbed with soap and water

and arrayed in their best clothes. ‘Every bit clean, right through to

the skin,’ as their mothers proudly declared. Then, after a snack,

calculated to sustain the family during the walk to the park, but not to

spoil the appetite for tea, the mothers went upstairs to take out their

own curl papers and don their best clothes. A strong scent of camphor

and lavender and closely shut boxes pervaded the atmosphere around them

for the rest of the day. The colours and styles did not harmonize too

well with the midsummer country scene, and many might have preferred to

see them in print frocks and sunbonnets; but they dressed to please

themselves, not to please the artistic taste of others, and they were

all the happier for it.

 

Before they started there was much running from house to house and

asking: ‘Now, should you put on another bow just here!’ or ‘Do you

think that ostrich tip our young Em sent me’d improve my hat, or do you

think the red roses and black lace is enough?’ or ‘Now, tell me true, do

you like my hair done this way?’

 

The men and boys with shining faces and in Sunday suits had gone on

before to have dinner at the farm before meeting their families at the

cross-roads. They would be having cuts off great sirloins and Christmas