The People of This Parish (Part One of The People of this Parish Saga) Read online

  THE PEOPLE OF THIS PARISH

  (Part One of The People of This Parish Saga)

  Nicola Thorne

  Publishing History

  First published in hardback in Great Britain 1991by William Heinemann Limited under the name of Nicola Thorne writing as Rosemary Ellerbeck. Published in paperback in 1992 by Mandarin Paperbacks under the same names.

  Mandarin is an imprint of the Octopus Publishing Group, a division of Reed International Books Limited

  Unabridged Audio edition published by ISIS Publishing Ltd in 2001

  This E book edition revised by the author in 2013

  Copyright © Nicola Thorne 1991, 1992, 2001, 2013

  (Nicola Thorne is the pseudonym of Rosemary Ellerbeck)

  The author has asserted her moral rights.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 0 7493 0554 1

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Author website: www.nicolathorne.com

  Cover picture 19th century engraving of a Dorset village

  Design by Ruth Wrixton

  E book preparation Witley Press Ltd, Hunstanton, PE36 6AD

  About the Author

  Nicola Thorne was born in South Africa and, after a spell in New Zealand with her mother who was born in Wellington, came to England as a child where her parents finally separated. She spent her youth in the North of England, where she was educated first at a convent school and then a co-educational school. After completing her education at the London School of Economics she then spent most of her adult life in London. She has made a long career as a writer and is the author of over fifty novels. For a number of years Nicola has been among the top most borrowed authors from public libraries in the UK (PLR statistics) and many of her books have been published in foreign languages apart from English. After fifteen years spent in Dorset, she now lives in Devon.

  By the same author

  Return to Wuthering Heights (also e-book)

  A Woman Like Us (also e-book)

  The Perfect Wife and Mother (also e-book)

  The Daughters of the House (also e-book)

  Where the Rivers Meet (also e-book)

  Affairs of Love

  Pride of Place

  Bird of Passage

  Champagne

  Champagne Gold

  A Wind in Summer

  Silk, a novel

  Profit and Loss

  Trophy Wife

  Repossession, a novel of psychic suspense (also e-book)

  Worlds Apart

  Old Money

  Rules of Engagement

  The Good Samaritan

  Class Reunion

  My Name is Martha Brown (also e-book)

  In Search of Martha Brown (non-fiction)

  A Friend of the Family

  Coppitts Green (also e-book)

  The Little Flowers (also e-book)

  Rose, Rose, Where are You? (also e-book)

  On a Day Like Today

  The Holly Tree

  The Pride of the School (e-book only)

  After the Rain (also e-book)

  The Askham Chronicles, 1898-1967:

  Never Such Innocence

  Yesterday’s Promises

  Bright Morning

  A Place in the Sun

  The People of this Parish series:

  The People of this Parish (also e-book)

  The Rector’s Daughter

  In This Quiet Earth

  Past Love

  A Time of Hope

  In Time of War

  The Broken Bough Saga:

  The Broken Bough (also e-book)

  The Blackbird’s Song (also e-book)

  The Water’s Edge (also e-book)

  Oh Happy Day! (also e-book)

  The Enchantress Saga

  The Enchantress (e -book only)

  Falcon Gold (e-book only)

  Lady of the Lakes (e-book only)

  Synopsis

  ‘The people of this parish,’ Mrs Lamb went on, ‘quite rightly expect its members to conform to the decencies of society. For an unwed woman and man to live openly together ...’

  The parish of Wenham is dominated by the grand manor of Pelham’s Oak and its owners, the aristocratic Woodville family. However, the young master of Pelham’s Oak, Sir Guy Woodville, is penniless. In a rare moment of responsibility, he agrees to a marriage of convenience in order to bolster the family fortunes.

  Guy’s only sister, Eliza, is beautiful but inclined to be a tomboy. For her the marriage brings new pressures. Her childhood home is hers no longer, and the thought of being forced into a similar society marriage is more than the rebellious Eliza can bear. Besides, she is already attracted to the son of a local builder, Ryder Yetman, a rugged veteran of the Zulu wars. The Yetmans, although prosperous, are not considered by the haughty Woodvilles to be their social equals, and the consequence of Eliza’s and Ryder’s passion for each other is irrevocable.

  The story follows the fluctuating fortunes of the two families: the romances, rivalries and scandals, the financial catastrophes, the moments of joy and the personal tragedies. Set against the decline of the Victorian era, when hitherto rigid social conventions were being swept away, this colourful, evocative novel brings old Dorset and the people of a small parish vividly to life.

  Contents

  PART ONE: A Woman from Holland

  PART TWO: The Master Thatcher

  PART THREE: The Fabric of Society

  Prologue

  Wenham was not exactly a village, not properly a town; too big for one, too small for the other. Yet with its market, its fine church, its cluster of shops in the main street and its growing population Wenham was, by the year 1880, more like a town than a Dorset village, a place on its way to prosperity.

  During the day its inhabitants could be seen thronging the streets or in the shops, arguing over the price of cattle in the market, or the price of beef at the butcher’s, the price of potatoes at the greengrocer’s or flour at the grocer’s. The menfolk made their way in and out of the taverns for refreshment, and there was a constant toing and froing as people called on one another or went about their business, rode their horses or drove their carriages – few of these – along the narrow main street.

  Lady Woodville was seldom seen in the streets or shops of Wenham. If she needed anything it was sent for or, more likely, ordered from London, where the Woodvilles maintained a large town house. The country estate two miles from Wenham had its own farm, which provided all the vegetables and dairy produce that the members of the household needed.

  Yet on Sunday the Woodville carriage could be observed stationed directly outside the church porch, its horses patiently pawing the ground or feeding from a nosebag, while the family attended divine service. They sat at the rear of the church in the Woodville pew, distinguished from all the others by the high, carved stalls and the cushions embroidered by the ladies of the parish.

  Lady Woodville, a widow, was accompanied by her son, Guy, her daughter, Eliza, and such relations or friends as happened to be staying. Latterly there had been another important addition to the household – a young Dutch woman called Margaret Heering to whom Guy was soon to be married. Sometimes her mother or father were with h
er, or her brother Julius and his wife, all of whom lived in Amsterdam.

  The members of the Yetman family, on the other hand, were frequently to be seen on the streets, in the market and in the shops of Wenham. They occupied a large house in the centre of the town, but they had only lived in it for a generation, whereas Woodvilles had been at their mansion, Pelham’s Oak, since the seventeenth century.

  The Woodvilles were aristocrats, old money – what was left of it. The Yetmans were yeoman stock and their fortune newly made. In the previous century the Yetmans had served the Woodvilles in a menial capacity before Thomas Yetman, using his skills as a builder and master thatcher, had broadened his interests, extended his family, bought a fine house, thrust himself into any number of parochial activities, so that his son John now numbered himself equal to any man in the land.

  It is with the Woodvilles, the Yetmans, the Heerings and the people of the small, mid-Dorset parish of Wenham, that this story is concerned.

  PART ONE

  A Woman from Holland

  1

  Eliza Woodville had promised her mother faithfully that she would be on her best behaviour at her brother’s wedding. After all, next to the bride she had a most important role: she was chief bridesmaid, and such an onerous responsibility had sat heavily upon her for many weeks and caused her sleepless nights.

  The fact was that Eliza was not the stuff of which good bridesmaids are made. Although a lady, she was not ladylike. She hated the whole idea of dressing up, being demure in church and holding the bride’s bouquet. In truth she also hated taking second place, for everyone knew that all eyes would be on the one whose day it was: the bride. She would much rather that she had not been chosen, but as the only sister of the bridegroom her selection in a way was mandatory. As chief bridesmaid she was in charge of five others and two pages, who would hold the bride’s long train as she walked down the aisle of Wenham parish church to become Lady Woodville.

  Margaret Heering had been introduced to Guy Woodville by his uncle Prosper Martyn, who was a successful banker and businessman in the City of London. The Heerings were wealthy spice merchants from Amsterdam, customers of Martyns’ Bank. The match was welcomed and was considered especially fortuitous because, at the time that Guy met Margaret, the fortunes of the Woodville family were at a low ebb and the very future of Pelham’s Oak was at stake. The house was almost a ruin, both inside and out – evidence of years of neglect.

  It was not unnatural that as Eliza stood behind her brother and his bride during the wedding ceremony, conducted by the Rector, her thoughts should stray to this fact, because, although Margaret was by nature a cheerful and good-hearted girl, she was older than her groom and, despite a mass of Titian hair, she was otherwise astonishingly plain.

  She had a large bony face with an especially protuberant nose and an overlarge mouth which, when she smiled, showed teeth too widely spaced. She had a long neck and a thin angular body, virtually bosomless like a boy’s. She moved and even stood awkwardly as if over-conscious of her lack of beauty and afraid that people were looking at her.

  Guy, on the other hand, was so handsome he was god-like, almost beautiful, with perfect sculpted features. In addition he was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark brown hair that curled naturally and long luxuriant side whiskers. His eyes were brown, his complexion slightly swarthy. His bride seemed to clutch at his arm for support as they emerged from the church to face the world. Incredible as it seemed to her, the deed was done. They were man and wife.

  Brides are traditionally considered beautiful, however, and that day Margaret’s happiness made her almost beautiful too. As the bells pealed forth the sun broke out from behind clouds as if to cast on the pair, climbing into their carriage for the drive back to Pelham’s Oak, a kind of benediction.

  Riding in the carriage behind the bride, Eliza crossed her fingers and smiled kindly at Margaret’s cousin Beatrix, who spoke very little English but who was much more attractive than the bride. What a pity, Eliza thought, that Guy hadn’t chosen her.

  The Woodville family seat was always referred to as Pelham’s Oak rather than Pelham’s Court, which was its proper name. It included a small hamlet, just a farm and a cluster of humble dwellings, which belonged to the big house. In the centre of the lawn stood a great oak tree, grown, so tradition had it, from an acorn from the oak in which Pelham Woodville’s royal master lay hidden before his escape to France. The great oak tree now dominated the lawn and was a feature on the skyline, visible for many miles around. Around this Pelham Woodville had started his mansion, which was continued and finished by his son Charles, named in honour of the Merry Monarch and later ennobled by him.

  The mansion had originally been built of red Dorset brick, but an eighteenth-century Woodville faced it with stone from the nearby Chilmark quarry and gave it a porch and portico in keeping with the architectural tastes of that age of elegance. It was set on a hill between Blandford and Dorchester, and commanded a magnificent view of some of the prettiest countryside in Dorset. Across the River Wen atop a neighbouring hill, the little town of Wenham looked down upon the river which, just past Blandford, joined the Stour on its journey to the sea.

  Anyone with a bird’s eye view would have been astonished by the number of carriages which wended their way from the church, out of the town, over the bridge and along the winding road until they came to the great gates of Pelham’s Oak and started to climb, a little more slowly and ponderously, up the hill to the house, which stood at the end of a long drive and was almost invisible from the road.

  When his carriage arrived outside the portico, Guy was the first out. He put up a hand for his bride, whom he then scooped into his arms and carried over the threshold into the main hall, where the servants were lined up to greet the new mistress of the house.

  One by one the other carriages drew up, allowed the occupants to alight and then drove away to await the end of the festivities. Henrietta, Lady Woodville, the bridegroom’s mother, stood with the bride’s parents, her brother Prosper Martyn, and the bride and groom welcoming the guests while Eliza arranged her charges, by now rather hot and thirsty, around the cascading folds of the bride’s dress.

  Then came the moment of great excitement when Mr Pond, the photographer from Wimborne, having mounted his elaborate camera on a tripod, disappeared under his cloth to photograph the bridal party, a memento which would adorn the drawing room wall for generations to come.

  Eliza had been photographed before. First, with her mother, father and Guy when she and her brother were small and Mr Pond had first set up in business. Then she had posed, once again at the house, for her eighteenth birthday six months before. The result was rather stilted, rather artificial, its primness not seeming to capture the spirit of Eliza at all, and it had been banished to a room that was rarely used.

  ‘May I change into my ordinary clothes now?’ Eliza asked after Mr Pond had dismantled his apparatus and departed to develop the plates.

  ‘Certainly not,’ snapped her mother, flushed, not only from the exertions of the day, but also as a result of the glasses of champagne she had had recourse to in rather quick succession to soothe her nerves.

  No longer would she be able to give commands which would instantly be obeyed, and expect to take precedence at all civic functions. Henceforward, she was the dowager, and would take second place to her son’s wife. It was a prospect she viewed with dismay and alarm, and only now was its significance dawning on her.

  Eliza knew what disturbed her mama and she made allowances for it. Since their father’s death her mother had been anxious that Guy should marry; he must have an heir, but he must also marry well. The result was the inordinately plain but very cheerful and enormously wealthy Margaret Heering, a Dutch bride for an English baronet.

  ‘Then when may I change into ordinary clothes?’ Eliza persisted. ‘You said “after the wedding”, Mama.’

  ‘I meant the wedding day. After the wedding day. Tonight there will be dancing.
’

  ‘I don’t like dancing,’ Eliza said petulantly.

  Her mother sighed and, stopping a passing waiter, reached for yet another glass of the golden, restorative liquid that came from the banks on either side of the River Marne.

  ‘If only you had been a boy!’ she said, not for the first time. ‘That’s what you should have been.’

  And that’s what she would like to have been. Angrily Eliza tossed her curls, which had been twisted up in rags by her maid the night before and were now gathered up on top of her head in a cluster of long sausages. She hated them. She was about to turn her back on her mother and flounce away when the bride’s father, Willem Heering, approached them, leaning jovially on the arm of the marriage broker.

  Prosper Martyn was well named. The family were of humble origin. They had been boatmen from Poole who, during the revolution in France, had seized the opportunity to smuggle people and goods in and out of that beleaguered nation. Frequently it was dangerous work, but the greater the danger the higher the price. Soon the Martyns prospered, and they reflected their good fortune in naming the son who was to be the most successful of all.

  Prosper, observing his niece in a petulant mood, put out a hand to bar her way.

  ‘Now, Eliza, what is this? A temper tantrum on your brother’s wedding day? Surely not!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I want to get out of this!’ Eliza said, tugging at her pale yellow muslin bridesmaid’s dress. ‘I want to put on my ordinary clothes. This makes me feel so foolish.’

  Henrietta Woodville gave an exaggerated sigh and raised her eyes to the fine painted ceiling.

  ‘I said she should have been a boy. If I say it once a day I say it ten times.’