Читать книгу The Maidens of Walsingham - Анна Морион - Страница 8

Mr. Pilough, the architect invited from London, inspected the church, made measurements and calculations, drew the blueprints, walked round the building a hundred times, spoke to Pastor Glowford about the commencement of the work, and left for the Earl's estate, where he was staying while the parish church was being restored.

When Christine brought her father a bundle of food, the parson had already finished his grammar lesson and was preparing for vespers. Today he was busy: he personally pointed out to Mr. Pilough every crack in the walls, the nearly collapsed rim and the leaking spots in the church roof. He asked the architect whether the renovation would not be too ruinous for the noble landlord, but he told him that the Count had ordered that no expense should be spared. At vespers the parson announced to the congregation the joyous news of the Count of Draymore's generosity, to which the peasants immediately clapped their hands and enthusiastically raised a hymn to the Saviour.

In the evening the Glowfords were visited by Mr. Morris: he examined Cassie, and announced with satisfaction that her health was recovering, in spite of her strange walk to the old mill. When the doctor returned to Rivershold, he and Mr. Pilough wrote up the reports of their work and sent them to their employers. Mr. Morris, in a rather lengthy letter, reported to Viscount Wilworth on the state of Miss Cassandra Glowford's health, explaining in detail his thoughts on her recovery and the improvement of the family's living conditions. He also mentioned a couple of times that the family's beds were ordinary straw bunks, placed directly on the floor. He could not keep silent about Cassie's "escape" to the mill and the fact that during those hours the girl was dressed in only a nightgown and barefoot, and that he had advised Catherine to bathe his young patient. Mr. Pilough, on the other hand, wrote to Lord Draymore with his reasonings as to the possibility of rebuilding the church, and informed him of the amount the work would cost the Earl, and soon afterwards received a letter in which the Count informed him that the necessary building materials for the church had been bought and brought to Walsingham as soon as possible.

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Following Mr. Morris's advice, Catherine heated two buckets of water, poured it into a small wooden tub, which she had to carry into the house, mixed boiling water with cold water from a nearby stream, and washed Cassie in it. Then more clean water was added to the tub, and Christine and Catherine bathed in it. Pastor Glowford seldom bathed at home: when spring came, he always bathed in the local stream, and used the tub only in winter. His health had always been characterised by an enviable resistance to disease.

A week later, May came: the warmth, which was unusual for this month, and everything began to green up even thicker and brighter than before. The Walsinghams gladly threw off their heavy woollen shawls and coarse jackets, and put on their summer cotton clothes, which, like the rest of the peasants' wardrobe, were old, worn and shabby, but clean: in spite of their poverty, the peasants were zealous for cleanliness. They were not ashamed of their life of poverty: they had nothing to compare it with, and only Christine Glowford secretly hated it, dreaming of more than this provincial, peacefully flowing, meaningless life in this dying village.

Cassie was quite recovered: the warmth and care of her family and Mr. Morris, as well as his healing mixture, did their good work, and already in the first days of the month the girl was running in the field, where she was picking wildflowers and catching beetles.

By this time the materials needed to rebuild the church had been brought to Walsingham, and there was a loud noise of rejoicing in the village. It seemed to the poor that their lives were about to change for the better, symbolised by the rebuilt church. But Christine did not share the general joy, on the contrary, she increasingly fell into despair, she was afraid of being frozen here: with the work did not work, to save even a small amount of money for travel to London could not be saved, in addition, John Tiley again resumed his courtship, and this made the girl angry. She was unpleasant that this "dirty poor man, who cannot even read, this rude and uncouth bumpkin" dared to think about her and offer her marriage with him.

On the fifth of May the restoration work on the church began: there were more volunteers than before, but as the peasants had never been trained in building, the work was very slow and often had to be redone, which upset Mr. Pilough, who was used to working with trained or at least capable builders. But as Lord Draymore paid generously for the architect's labour and patience, the architect, with a heavy heart, continued to work with the " foolish peasants ". After a week, however, the work had to be put on hold: the weather turned cold and rainy, and it rained from morning to evening. Life in Walsingham seemed to stand still, but none of the devout villagers dared to miss the church masses, which were held in the church, despite the ongoing renovations, because there was no other place in the village to gather. On such rainy days, the roads in the village became real swamps, full of liquid mud, reaching up to the ankles and above, so the men put long planks on the ground, building something like bridges, but more often than not carried their children and wives to church in their arms, making several trips to do so, and then the widows with their children. Many still came on foot, however, and among them were the Glowfords: each resident had heavy wooden clogs for this purpose. Often after the service there was confusion: the clogs left on the doorstep of the church got mixed up, and people often could not make out whose was whose, and then a loud noise was made. The pastor, dissatisfied with the noise, suggested a simple way of solving the problem – to carve certain numbers on each pair, but the peasants refused: it was much easier for them to search for their shoes for a long time, and this occupation brought them some fun.

But soon the rain stopped, the sun came back, and with its warmth it drained the bogs that had formed on the roads, and the Walsingham people returned to their usual chores: tending to their livestock and poultry, gardening, and washing. Unfortunately, the heavy rain that flooded the vegetable gardens killed many of the vegetables, which was a sadness to the whole village, which lived on what it grew. Workers in the church continued the restoration, while other men pulled straw out of the crevices of their houses, dried it in the sun and plugged it back up. Soon the volunteers in the church dwindled, but Pastor Glowford himself took over the work, which shamed and embarrassed those who refused to help and forced them back to work.

The Glowford sisters lived May in different ways. Catherine was all in the cares: she washed clothes, every third day made in the house general cleaning, working in the garden, cooking, mending clothes, in fact, did all the things she always did. Christine sullenly did her share of the work and tried desperately to escape the attentions of the persistent John, while Cassie ran with the village children through the fields and woods, where she picked and ate (secretly from her sisters and father) green apples and berries.

Early in June a wedding was celebrated at Walsingham: Miss Miriam Wyby and young Thomas Neilly were married. It cannot be said that the young people were particularly happy, but as there were few young people in the village, and half the population consisted of children, the lads and maidens had no choice but to look for a match according to their age, and in the long years of such marriages all the villagers were related to each other in one way or another. The Glowfords had many relatives too, for the parson's late wife had been one of the Walsinghams, so that some of the parishioners were secretly terribly proud of their kinship with the parson himself and his beautiful, clever daughters. The wedding was modest, but the grateful peasants did not forget to invite Mr. Morris and Mr. Pilough to it, thus commending their services to the community. Mr. Morris was unable to attend the wedding, but he arrived in time for the feast and brought with him a magnificent treat from Rivershold, which delighted everyone, and Mr. Pilough, who decided that such an exotic wedding in such a remote village was not to be missed, attended the wedding from its very beginning (giving the young couple a pair of good knives from the Rivershold kitchen and as many forks and spoons, but not silver ones, but those used by the servants, which was still a joy to the young family) to its conclusion, when the villagers had gone home.

Mr. Morris sat beside his pet (as he had named her), Cassandra Glowford, and was genuinely amused by her spontaneity and childish prattle, as well as amusing her and telling her of his adventures in Europe and how he had met his wife. The girl had little idea what he was talking about, but the names of some of the towns amused her so much that she immediately burst into an infectious, ringing laugh.

Mr. Pilough was mostly silent, enjoying the unpretentious country dishes (alcohol was absent) and contemplating the rough but hearty beauty of the village girls, who paid no attention to him as they were busy gossiping and wondering which of them would marry next after Miriam.

Christine chatted passionately with her neighbour, forgetting her bad mood for a while, but feeling the amorous gaze of poor John Tiley. And the village gossips had already discussed it and decided that the next to walk down the aisle would be the middle Glowford and "John, who is madly in love with her."

Catherine had been a little sad all day: she was worried that she and the congregation would miss vespers today, which would be a great sin.