Rebecca Stubbs: The Vicar's Daughter
Rebecca Stubbs
The Vicar’s Daughter
© 2015 by
Hannah Buckland
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-62020-543-3
eISBN: 978-1-62020-451-1
Scripture quotations taken from The Authorized Version.
Cover Design and Page Layout by Hannah Nichols
eBook Conversion by Anna Riebe Raats
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my father-in-law, who encouraged me to write in the first place, and Christine for seeing potential in
Rebecca Stubbs
. Hartelijke bedankt! Thanks also to Helen for her observant reading and special thanks to Dad, who ploughed through the story for agricultural or historic accuracy.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
For eleven months of every year, the picturesque oast houses that are so much a part of the Kentish landscape stood silent and still, their only inhabitants being farm machinery and field mice. But as August gave way to September and the hop bines in the field swayed heavily with green flowers, the oast houses became the centre of agricultural activity. Their heavy doors were swung open, the rusty machinery was dragged out, and the field mice fled. The farm labourers swept out the oasts to a standard any self-respecting housewife would be proud of, and huge charcoal fires were lit, ready to dry the newly picked hops.
Harvesting the crop required a large workforce. The coarse, scratchy hop bines had to be pulled down and the precious green seed-cone flowers picked off by hand and then gathered into big sacks called pokes. These pokes were transported to the oast houses, where the fresh, damp hops were carefully dried in kilns over a charcoal fire until crisp and brittle. Once packed into large bags called pockets and stencilled with the farmer’s name, the hops were ready to be collected by the brewery, where the bitter pollen of the hop would give the beer its uniquely tangy flavour.
A large number of seasonal labourers was needed to harvest the hops, so year after year Londoners from the East End descended upon the rural villages of Kent in order to gain employment, a few weeks of country air, and a few shillings to put aside for winter expenses. Most farmers saw the Londoners as a necessary evil. They provided rows of hopper huts and cook houses to accommodate the multi-generation crowds. Some of these were solid, water-tight brick huts, but others were merely wooden shacks. Straw and sacks were provided for mattress making, and faggots for fires.
CHAPTER 1
SLEEP EVADED ME. THE BED
was cosy, the temperature agreeable and my body tired, yet my whirling thoughts refused to rest. Why, oh why had I decided to leave my native village of Pemfield to work in a faraway manor house? Why had I not listened to the wise advice of my seniors and stayed put? At the crack of dawn I was to leave my dear friends, those who had lovingly supported me after my parents’ untimely deaths, to become a housemaid among strangers. I—who had never set foot even in the grounds of a stately home and had no idea of the daily life of their inhabitants! My ignorance would be plain to see and the housekeeper was sure to detect it within seconds of my arrival. She would send me straight back with a flea in my ear for wasting her time, and all of Pemfield would be talking of my inadequacy and silly ideas. So much had happened in the last seven months of my life. Was I about to add to its drama by my ill-advised decision? My restless mind reviewed again the sad events that had catapulted me into this situation.
September of 1857 had begun like any other: with commotion and chaos, laughter and lice, hordes of EastEnders from London descending on our rural Kent village—Pemfield—for hop-picking. As usual my father, the vicar of the parish, wholeheartedly welcomed his temporary parishioners and sought to do them good for both soul and body. His normal, rather staid parish became a hive of activity, gossip, scandal, and friction between villagers and Londoners—and Londoners against each other. The East End invaders were treated with great suspicion by the locals, who blamed them for any vegetables missing from their gardens, clothes from their lines, or apples from their orchards. The Londoners thought the locals were an ignorant bunch and could not appreciate the wisdom gained from living near to the soil and being dependent on the weather.
Pa went from one hopper hut to another, meeting old friends and new babies. He caught up with the news of another year and—amid friendship and warmth—he would try to recommend Christ to everyone he met. His message was usually received with politeness, thanks to his kindness and office, but most of his words were choked by the cares of this life. Getting pokes filled with hops, cooking meals over smouldering fires, dealing with teething babies, and keeping leaking hopper huts dry occupied most of the daylight hours of the busy workers. Any spare time was spent catching up on the latest scandal or with singing around the campfire with a stiff drink, rather than with reflecting on a distant eternity ahead.
Ma and I were equally busy in the garden and along the hedgerows picking berries and apples for jam and jelly. This was our favourite time of year, the chilly morning mists breaking into gloriously sunny days ready to be filled with harvesting the abundance of nature. Our cool kitchen floor was littered with baskets of fruit waiting to be chopped, boiled, and sugared. The stove worked overtime, bringing sweet, sticky liquids to gelling point.
“Before we know it, October will be upon us, and we will be organising the wobbly and precarious display for the Harvest Thanksgiving service,” Ma said as she chopped up some apples.
“I don’t think any of Pa’s carrots and potatoes will be suitable for display,” I replied, stirring the bubbling jam. “The few the rabbits and slugs haven’t eaten are so misshapen they are not fit for public inspection—we’ll have to hide them behind someone’s prize marrows.”
“Don’t talk to me about hiding veg!” Ma replied with a smile. “There is no easier way of falling out with a parishioner than by placing his prized product behind a cabbage or cottage loaf!” She sighed and shook her head. “Your poor father, he works so hard in that vegetable patch.”
“It’s more a labour of love than hard work, isn’t it?” I suggested. “Anyway, he says it is there that his sermons take shape.”
“Then, my dear, it might be more fruitful than we think.”
The thought of Harvest Thanksgiving must have been on her mind, for Ma started humming “Come Ye Thankful People Come,” and before long we were singing it together, with Ma singing the melody and me harmonising with the alto. The words, “All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin,” gave a warm and cosy feeling of food stored in the loft and in the cellar whilst whirling snow drifted outside. But this year we had no inkling of how close the safe gathering would reach.
That evening Pa arrived late for supper, accompanied by a gust of chilly autumnal air.
‘’It smells like a sweet shop in here,” he said as he removed his boots.
“Damson jam and elderberry jelly,” I explained.
“What delayed you this time?” Ma asked after grace had been said and as we tucked into beef stew.
“Zaphnath-paaneah!” Pa said without looking up from his plate. We immediately knew what he meant. By not providing adequate housing, Farmer Joseph Smith was the cause of many problems amongst the hop pickers.
“So what was it you provided today, which Farmer Smith should have arranged?” I asked.
“Buckets,” answered Pa. “Buckets to catch the drips in leaky hopper huts.”
“I thought I was missing a few pails from my wash-house!” exclaimed Ma.
“And from the state of the row of privies, I doubt if rain-water will be all they are catching,” continued Pa, digging into his dumplings.
“Oh, Frank,” ejected Ma as I giggled. “Then I will not be wanting my buckets back, thank you very much!”
“My darling, you may have full peace of mind about that. Have we ever had anything returned which we ‘loaned’ to the hoppers?”
We continued our supper, after which Pa read a passage of Scripture from the well-worn family Bible and ended the meal with prayer. Then we lingered at the wooden kitchen table, reluctant to get up and start the work of cleaning the dishes, each filled with the lazy contentment that comes from eating good food after a busy day.
“An infant of a hop-picker is feverish,” Pa announced, breaking the silence.
“Is he teething?” asked Ma. “I have a lotion for that.”
“The mother doesn’t think so.”
“It could be sunstroke; those hop gardens become a sun-trap come noon, and there is so little shelter for the little ones. I can find some calamine for that.”
“Thank you, my dear apothecary, but the child has been well discussed by the London women, and they do not think it is sunstroke. Between them, those women have more wisdom than. . .”
He paused for a suitable simile.
“All the colleges in Cambridge?” I suggested.
“Exactly!” he replied with a laugh. “And a good deal more common sense too. And by the way, my dear,” he said, turning to me, “it is good to have you back to your normal self again.”
