A Station In Life (17 page)

With the refreshment set
out, my hostess finally joined me and sighed deeply while filling the cups.

“When my husband died he
left me penniless,” she commenced heavily.  “So to make ends meet I turned to
lace and quilt making, and my son abandoned his schooling to find gainful
employment.  At first Diggory worked for the rat catcher.  Then, under the
smithy at Upford forge, he made good his ability to strike and shoe.  Finally
he found still better prospect on the South Exmoor railway.”

“But what happened to
your late husband’s business?” I interrupted.  “Was Mr Smith not the farrier
hereabouts?”

“At Rington,” she
confirmed, and added bitterly, “but upon being widowed I lost the premises.  A
young businessman from Exeter laid claim to them, something for which I was
completely unprepared, Mr Jay.  Indeed, I was no more expecting a stranger to
contest my husband’s will than was I expecting my husband to die in the first
place.  Before I knew it, the estate was in chancery and it came to light that
the business was not my husband’s to bequeath.  As a result I lost the forge,
the stables, the dispensary, and even the dwelling in which my husband and I
had lived all our married lives.  Having lost the roof over our heads, Diggory
and I packed our chattels and repaired to this rented cottage.”

“But how could this
happen?” I asked incredulously.  “Surely your husband held the deeds to his
property.”

“No!” said she with a
sense of shock not dulled by the years.  “The business had been handed down
from father to son without such documents.  My husband’s forebears had taken
possession of the forge when its founder disappeared on a trip to Portsmouth in
Seventeen-Eighty.”

“Disappeared?” I
puzzled, then gave the story some thought.  “Mmm, the fellow was probably
press-ganged.”

“It is wicked that such
things can happen,” she agreed.

I sipped my tea
knowingly.

“Those who made poor
sailors seldom survived the ordeal of going to sea, and those who made good
sailors were seldom released ashore again,” I remarked.

Mrs Smith’s tea, by the
way, was ghastly.  Not only was it weak, it tasted excruciatingly sour.  I
suspected that she had bought it cheap from a street vendor.  There was one
pedlar in particular who sold used tea-leaves salvaged from the kitchens of the
big houses in the district.  His trick was to purchase the expired tea from a
scullery maid, dry it out and colour it with vegetable dye to make it look
fresh again, then sell it to folk who could not otherwise afford the luxury.

“So who was this Exeter
businessman?” I asked, setting down the cup with a sickly grin.

Mrs Smith did not hear
my question.  She was gazing distantly through the box window.  I watched her
face contract delicately with sorrow, the resulting gravure a chronicle of
disappointment, then yield to the traces of a smile.  Now was the flicker of a
precious memory suddenly alive in the room.  Presently she steeled herself to
tell me more.

“My pappa, God rest his
soul, was a horse dealer,” she said pensively.  “He owned stables in a suburb
of Paris, and it was on a trip with him to England that I met Thomas.”  At this
point Mrs Smith interrupted herself.  “Thomas was my husband, you see.  My fate
was sealed from the moment pappa decided to take advice on English law from the
same practice as Thomas.  Ironically, Mr Jay, my fate was sealed in more ways
than one by this practitioner.”

“Go on,” I prompted her
and forced down a little more of her dreadful tea.

“Well, as I have
implied, it was in this lawyer’s office that I met the man who was to take me
for his wife, but it was also here that the seeds of my present predicament
were sewn.  Thomas, Mr Jay, was not like his forebears.  He did not take good
fortune for granted, and although I did not know it at the time he was looking
into the legality of his proprietorship.  Indeed, I did not come to know the
purpose of his legal consultation until after he died, for my husband believed
it improper to burden me with his business concerns.  After Thomas’s death I
learned that the lawyer of whom I have spoken had occasioned him to believe
that his possession of the forge was valid in the eyes of the law, whereas, in
fact, it was not.”

“Upon my soul,” I
gasped.  “So the lawyer’s advice was wrong.  What, precisely, did he tell your
husband?”

“Well, he said that
because the founder of the business had disappeared with no known next of kin
he had thereby ceded ownership of the premises to my husband’s grandfather.  My
husband’s grandfather had been running the business for many years as the
senior smithy, you see.”

“It is a complicated
story,” I remarked, and drained my cup with a gasp of relief.

Mrs Smith offered me
more tea.  I declined.

“Apparently,” she
continued, “when Thomas’s father inherited the business he built up trade quite
considerably, so that by the time Thomas himself inherited it, albeit without
title deeds, it had grown to a sizeable concern.”

“To be badly represented
by a lawyer is scandalous,” I consoled her.

Somewhat bewildered, I
joined Mrs Smith in a spell of wistful silence.  This gave me an opportunity to
marshal my thoughts, and while doing  so I surveyed the parlour and noticed a
calotype hanging above the hearth.  It seemed that Mr Smith had been distinguished
enough to have his photograph taken, and had signed his name discreetly in a
corner of the print.

“I see you are lucky
enough to have your late husband’s image for company,” I remarked.

“Yes,” she replied
dejectedly.  “But it is fading.”

I had been told
oftentimes that I was a good listener.  However, this is a gift which tends
only to induce melancholy so I searched my thoughts for something more
uplifting with which to raise her spirits.  Indeed I felt an urge to take up
arms with Mrs Smith against the world, and had we been better acquainted I
might have pepped her with a pat on the shoulder, but in the unflinching gaze
of the master farrier I remained mindful of my conduct.

The fading photograph
made me curious about the character of the late Thomas Smith.  He was some
fourteen years older than his spouse, or would have been had he not left this
world for a better one, and I was compelled to study his portrait more
closely.  Whilst a glance suggested fierce determination, greater scrutiny brought
equally fierce compassion to his face, there being in his eyes a story of
humility and even a touch of timidity.  I fancy that he had embraced the
uncertainties of this world as a challenge rather than a distraction, and had
come to know himself better than most.

Mrs Smith lifted her
eyes yearningly to her fading husband, and he stared back with nothing to say. 
I could see her weighing up his imperfections, finding them all inconsequential
bar one.  He should never have left her.

“The rest of the story you
can piece together for yourself, Mr Jay,” she sighed, caressing her wedding
ring.  “On my husband’s death this arrogant young businessman from Exeter
revealed himself to be a descendant of the founder, thereby laying claim to
almost everything around me.”

“And this he did while
you were still in mourning,” I noted disdainfully.

“He swooped upon me like
a vulture,” Mrs Smith grimaced.  “With no concern for my grief.  Indeed, the
paralysis of my shock must have served his purpose well.  That, and the poor
counsel I was receiving.”

“Do you suppose he was a
charlatan?” I asked.  “Not a genuine descendant of the founder at all?”

“The court found him to
be genuine enough,” Mrs Smith replied.  “His lawyer, a dissolute man if ever
there was one, must have advised him not to file a claim until Thomas days were
done, in the knowledge that litigation with a grieving widow would be less
fraught.”

“And that in the
meantime the business would continue to expand by your husband’s toil,” I
surmised angrily.  “How could anyone make such a cruel investment?  And how
could such a far removed descendant reclaim an inheritance after almost a
hundred years?  The idea is preposterous.  Why was justice not done?”

“In the eyes of the law
it was,” she replied sardonically.

Mrs Smith gazed through
the window again.  This time her eyes rested upon Diggory, in whom, and only in
whom, her husband lived on.  I could see that her son compensated for many of
life’s hardships.

Dastardly though this
Exeter businessman’s deed had been I had yet to understand how it related to
Diggory’s abnormal behaviour presently.

“How so does this worry
your son so particularly now, after five years?” I asked Mrs Smith.

Her melancholic brown
eyes became fixed upon me steadfastly.

“I will explain, Mr
Jay,” said she.  “We came hither to live, finding rent of but sixpence per week
payable to that same Exeter businessman, for he is the landlord of this
property.  Putting a modest roof over our heads to spare us vagrancy was, so
the gentleman would have us believe, an act of charity.  In reality, of course,
he was seeking to ease his conscience.  I am told that redemption in the eyes
of the Lord is not so cheaply purchased, Mr Jay, although it would seem to be
so in the eyes of the community.  Naturally the gentleman’s agent, not he,
collects the dues, for the coward cannot look me in the eye.  Perhaps this is
why, now that the dust has settled upon the matter, it suits him to move us on
again.”

“Move you on again? 
Why, this is a nightmare!” I reeled.  “All I can say is that you must stick to
your description ‘coward’, Mrs Smith,” I advised the poor woman.  “This bounder
does not deserve the title ‘gentleman’ whatever may be his trappings.  Whither
shall you go?” I enquired.

“Somewhere of still
lower rent,” said she, “for we are in arrears here.  The railway brings cheap
foreign lace into the district, you know, and this has sorely reduced my
income.”

“You will secure meagre
curtilage for less than sixpence a week, Mrs Smith,” I observed.  “The basic
cottage rental in these parts is one shilling.”

“Then we shall make do
with meagre curtilage,” Mrs Smith advised me stiffly.  “Our gracious landlord
has permitted us to stay on here until next spring while we look for
alternative accommodation, but only if I pay the increased rent.  We shall
struggle to keep warm this winter without doubt, and to find fuel for cooking,
but we have no choice because it can take a long time for cheap accommodation
to become available in these parts.  To make ends meet I fear Diggory will have
to cut peat.”

“Cutting peat at the end
of a day’s work will be hard going for the lad,” I remarked.  “Struggling
across the moor with a heavily laden barrow on a howling winter’s night will be
no picnic.

“Nevertheless, we shall
manage.  Diggory is deceptively stout,” she insisted, her face distorted by the
picture I had painted.  “Anyway, our needs are modest now that the gypsies and
the hunt have taken our two pigs.”

“The gypsies and the
hunt?” I replied with the incomprehension of a village idiot.

Mrs Smith sighed with
resignation and I, wickedly perhaps, suppressed a smile.  It struck me as
comically improbable that two such diverse entities would conspire to eliminate
one’s pigs.  Before I knew it, Mrs Smith was explaining how it happened.

“The sty here is
dilapidated and my sow strayed,” she began.  “On two occasions I recovered her
from the village pound but on the last, while soon to farrow, she was savaged
by the Vellington hounds.  As everyone knows, the hunt does not pay
compensation to owners of stray livestock so I was unable to replace her.”

“Leaving you with only
one pig,” I concluded.

“No,” she corrected me. 
“This is why Diggory was late for work yesterday.  He had been across the
valley to recover our second pig from the gypsies.  Every year they make camp
on the common and livestock always goes missing.”

“So I hear,” I
responded.  “I take it Diggory was unable to recover the pig.”

“He was threatened with
a knife and had the good sense to come away,” said she indignantly.  “So now I
have only to find space for a couple of geese.”

“These people are
outrageous,” I sympathised loudly, referring to just about everyone who had
wronged Mrs Smith.

“My neighbours are very
good and have offered me replacements,” she smiled briefly.  “But I do not go
cap-in-hand just yet.”

Mrs Smith’s tales of woe
seemed inexhaustible, but whilst fate may have dealt her a bad hand it had
clearly failed to dent her aplomb.  She had been uncommonly talkative and
appeared grateful to me for listening.  Setting aside her teacup delicately,
she excused herself and returned to the kitchen to see how the frumenty was
progressing.

Left alone to cogitate
Mrs Smith’s many misfortunes I became uneasy about the railway’s part in them. 
First it had robbed her of her husband and now it was robbing her of her income
from lace.  I felt bound to offer some assistance but could think of nothing
practical.  Flipping open my fobwatch I discovered that I had over-stayed my
time so I joined her in the kitchen.