taciturn as my aunt and a hard taskmistress. The reading matter available was unquestionably moral and wholesome for a young lad (Mary Webb herself could have grown up with my aunt), but the rewards of the excessively virtuous have never appealed to me as a theme. Missing the company of my Gloucester street chums, as I rubbed the graphite paste onto the range one day, I ventured to ask Mrs. Bardette who there was of my age for me to play with.
She gave a short bark of a laugh. “Playmates?” she cried. “You won’t get local lads coming here, my boy, and that’s a fact.” When I asked the obvious, she retorted, “Because Mistress won’t have them, that’s why. She’d take her stick to them… or something.” (This last being something of an afterthought). She looked sideways at me, a slightly malicious nuance coming into her voice. “Not to say you mightn’t get company sometimes; this was once a school you know,” and she cackled to herself as she deposited the washing she was doing on to the big rubbing board and ladled more hot water from the iron pot on the range into the sink. She jumped rather guiltily as my aunt spoke from the doorway; neither of us knew how long she had been standing there.
“Mrs. Bardette,
Mrs. Bardette shook the suds of Sunlight soap from her arms before folding them akimbo.
“You
Now, whatever Mrs. B. might feel about the Wash House, I soon discovered what she had meant about the school and company (I only mention this, gentlemen, to give some idea of the atmosphere of the place; so far as I know it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story). There was a wide staircase leading up to the bedroom and a bend in the stairs where a window looked across the slopes to Long Mynd. One afternoon, while all was quiet in the house I was running upstairs to my room, and I paused to look out of this window. To my amazement, childrens’ voices—like the far-off clamor of a school playground—were all around me in the air; confused and incoherent, coming from nowhere. I shook my head, but it continued; without rhyme or reason. Then it ceased as suddenly as it had begun. I was strangely frightened and ran back downstairs and into the garden where my aunt was gathering herbs. She was muttering to herself as usual, a wooden lath basket over her arm. It was a measure of my fright that I poured it all out to her. She rose to her feet and put out a hand as if to touch me; then withdrew it.
“Ah,” she said. “You have the gift of hearing… don’t worry, it runs in the family. Sometimes you hear things; sometimes you don’t; sometimes you
Not a word more did I get from her on the subject; though I was conscious of her speculative glance on occasion and certainly her manner was less severe from that moment on.
There was nothing to be got from Mrs. Bardette either. “Pooh; that’s nothing,” she scoffed with a toss of her head to the window—which I took to indicate the Wash House.
With the temerity of youth, and the curiosity of a kitten, I hung about the shed in the daytime. (I was not allowed out after six at night). It was a gloomy, dank place frequented by the occasional frog and lit only by a much-dirtied skylight. It could be brilliant sunshine outside, but the minute I entered (there was no door), darkness closed in on me and had the physical effect of making me breathless. Overall hung an indescribable mustiness. I could see the old wrought-iron mangles, and the two ‘coppers’ for heating water. In the dimness my eyes could just discern a brace of heavy flatirons on a stove top, and between the intangible outlines of the coppers gleamed the dull white of a sink. Close by this, further into the shadows, hung
“Hmm, I know where you’ve been,” said she, dryly, and frog-marched me off to the chapel, where I sat on one of the chairs, trembling now, while she collected up the coconut mats. We hung them over the privet hedge and I helped her to beat them with the ‘spider.’ She made no further allusion to the cause of my fright, except to growl, “I’d keep out of there, my lad—and, whatever you do, say nothing to the mistress,” but she kept me beside her, and we went indoors and had a cup of tea together.
That was the eve of my departure, and nothing else untoward happened. I had expected fearsome dreams but in fact passed a quiet night. In the morning, my aunt walked with me to the—getting much salutation from local people—and put me on to the train home. To my utter amazement, she kissed my cheek and pressed half-a-crown into my hand. I was moved to wave from the carriage, but she had gone, and the interest of the journey dispelled all other thoughts.
“Doubtless you have already anticipated the outcome of my little experience, gentlemen?” remarked Mr. Cummings, stirring in his chair and lighting a vile little cheroot that smelled like burning cowpost. (I had visions of poor Mrs. Bailey trying to get the smell out of the curtains.) He waved the thing about like a joss-stick, describing smoke trails in the air, and at our lack of response, settled down again and continued.
I heard nothing of my aunt for years, save that thereafter she sent me a pound on each successive birthday. My father’s long illness intervened, and he died. She did not attend the funeral, nor did any others from the family in Shropshire; though I wrote to them all.
I was at theological college when I got a letter forwarded from home. It was written in large, badly formed letters, and was from a second cousin I had never met, telling me of the old Lady’s sudden death. Due to the delay in forwarding, the funeral was imminent and it seemed that she had named me to the family lawyer, and they were inviting me to attend and—later—to execute the will. I got compassionate leave and caught a train within a couple of hours.
The vagaries of railway timetables meant that I had to break my journey at Hereford. I could not resist revisiting the magnificent cathedral. Then, after a bun and an unpleasantly warm glass of milk in a teashop, I caught the Shrewsbury train and headed for Craven Arms.
There I crossed to the platform for the Wellington Branch, where a diminutive tank engine—running backwards—and two coaches were hopefully awaiting passengers. At 5 pm by the station clock we puffed out. Nostalgia awoke in me, for it had been this same train I had caught as a child of ten; a large and embarrassing label with my name and destination affixed to my best (and only) coat. The guard of the Shrewsbury train had handed me over to his counterpart of the branch line to ensure my alighting at Longbury. This time I would have to fend for myself! Even the engine was the same; for I remembered the number well—4401. Surely the carriage too? Had I not seen the sepia picture of Dawlish sea wall before? (But then it is in so many carriages!)
The little train left the main line at Marsh Farm Junction and headed out across Wenlock Edge, that lovely country of Houseman’s verses. (I will refrain from comment on Mary Webb, that other Salopian writer of note—since I know her bilge is popular with Mr. Timothy!) The sun was behind Long Mynd and one could not have guessed from the wild beauty of the scene that a little farther along this rural railway lay Shropshire’s ‘black country’—the iron foundries of Coalbrookdale and Horsehay & Dawley (what a deceptively lovely name!), dating back to 1709 and the Dudley family; though I believe charcoal forges had heated iron in those hills since Tudor times.
I was the only passenger to alight in the soft warm air at Longbury. The porter took my ticket, and replied to my compliment in the well-kept flower beds on the platform. “A welcome to you, Mr. Cummings,” he said, with a rather odd look at me, and signaled to a waiting car outside before marching off to the little cabin at the end of the platform to receive the tablet back from the engine driver. Clearly my coming was known in the village.
As I stepped forward to meet my cousin I could hear the explosive staccato bark of the train pulling away from the station and off toward Much Wenlock.
