Composure

COMPOSURE


The seventeenth of May 1897 was to be a special day for the ladies of the sewing circle at St. Lawrence’s church in Measham. They were going to have their photograph taken for the local newspaper and the photograph was to form part of the parish records. For some of them, actually, for most of them this would be the first photograph they had ever had taken. The churchyard was quiet except for the twittering of the sparrows who were hopping around in the freshly cut grass around the gravestones and the rustling of the black silk skirts of the ladies as they settled themselves carefully, balancing their ample bodies in the wide crinoline style skirts on the narrow wooden benches belonging to the Sunday school. They smiled at each other but were too nervous to speak .The sexton had just finished cutting the grass and the air was full of its scent .Emma could feel a sneeze rising in her nostrils, freshly cut grass always made her sneeze, she struggled to control the feeling so as to hold tight onto her composure. Sunlight shone through the leaves of the silver birch trees in front of the church and left dappled green patterns on the white collars of their black silk dresses.
George Wileman set up his camera and prepared to take the picture, throwing the camera’s black cape over his shoulders as he looked through the viewfinder and prepared to press the button to create the picture that would immortalise the group, holding up his arm to warn them to sit still.
As Emma sat still as a statue, her thoughts were flicking around her head wildly. It reminded her of what they said happened when people were drowning. Her life was passing before her; she felt faint and tried to banish the thoughts.
Here she was plain old Emma Edwards, as was, having her photograph taken with the good ladies of the church. Mrs Woodward from the village shop was there in the same row as Emma and little Mrs Poyser the policeman’s wife next to her. Mrs Hewetson the vicar’s wife, with her two grown-up daughters at her feet, was in the centre of the picture; next to her was Miss Sales, sixty if she was a day, and still teaching at the village school. She had taught William, Emma’s husband, Emma’s thoughts flew to her husband he was a good man; he had stood by her when she had become pregnant, it could happen the first time, with William junior. William’s mother had not wanted him to marry her, describing her as ‘ just a servant girl’ when they broke the news. His family threatened to disinherit him if he married her.
William and Emma had met while Emma was working as a dairymaid on the next farm to that belonging to William’s father James. She had left her home in the small mining village of Newbold Verdon, at the age of fourteen, not long after her mother’s death. Her father had married again within the year and his new young wife had not wanted Emma ‘hanging around the house’.
Emma had been very shy and lonely, when she first went to work in Appleby. The farm hours were long she had worked from dawn to dusk first as a skivvy, doing all the dirty jobs around the farm and kitchen, but Dennis Johnson, the farmer, had soon seen she was good with the animals, especially the cows, he had put her to work in the milking parlour. Her job had been to milk the cows twice a day every day and then prepare the milk for selling around the village and finally she made any spare milk into butter. This was how she had met William; he drove the milk cart with its shiny churns and measuring cups of many shapes and sizes. He delivered the milk in the early morning to the people of Appleby and Measham and returned the churns to Emma for cleaning in the early afternoon.
William was not tall, about 5ft 8inches, with bluely grey eyes but he was always ready for a laugh and a joke with Emma and she fell in love almost the first time he smiled at her. Not many people had smiled at her so often in her fifteen years she was swept off her feet. They did not really court, just met twice a day, exchanging a few words smiling and joking with each other getting to know each other, getting used to being together. This continued for two years until one September morning as he was loading the churns William said ‘It’s the Statutes this weekend in Ashby, Emma will you come with me? ‘ Emma was delighted, all the local farmers let the workers have a free weekend for the Statutes every year, it was the original local hiring fair, but now there were stalls selling ribbons and many fun things to do.’ I would love to accompany you Mr Stevenson.’ She said formally making a mock curtsey, reddening furiously she bent her head to her work.
This had been the real start of their courting, they went to the fair, and from then on spent every free moment together, there were not so may free moments and most of them were after dark as the winter drew on. They met in the warm straw filled barn with the cattle lowing in the background and one thing soon led to another.
When she found out she was pregnant Emma had not told William straight away, she thought he would reject her, she had seen it happen to many girls in the village. Sent home in disgrace or sent to the workhouse to have their babies and never seen again ashamed to show their faces. However, William guessed, ‘What’s up with you, Emma love,’ he asked one cold January morning already sure of the answer he was not a farmer for nothing.
‘Oh William we are going to have a baby.’
‘Thought as much, right we have to get married, quickly.’
When William told his parents his mother was furious, ‘you can’t marry some baggage of a farm servant. It might not be your baby.’
William was quite sure that the baby was his, he had seen Emma every day for the last three years he knew very well what type of girl she was. Even though William’s father threatened to disinherit him, he was not going to go back on his word to Emma.
Waiting outside the farm kitchen and hearing all the raised voices seventeen-year-old Emma had thought that his father’s words would be the end of the issue, but William packed his bag and holding Emma’s hand firmly they marched off down the lane towards the next village.
They had married there three Saturday’s later, a quiet wedding in this same St. Lawrence church, no bridesmaids or white dress for Emma just William’s cousin James and his wife as witnesses . James and Joan had found them a room in their cramped house that first night and William had found a job in the brickyard working with James and his other Stevenson cousins.
Life was not easy those first few years, William was not used to hard dirty physical toil, the bricks were rough and the process was dusty affecting the skin on his hands and his breathing. Emma had found a job in the village shop but not for long as soon as the pregnancy advanced it was not considered decent for her to be working and she had to work at home like Joan on the cotton- tape-weaving machine which was set up in the crowded family kitchen. The girls could make good money with the machine but it meant that they had little time for housework or cooking, the whole family had to work hard just to keep the roof over their heads and bread on the table.
It was four years before Emma and William heard from William’s family again. Emma’s father sent here a small wedding present and they used the money as a deposit for their first rented house. William Jnr was born and the house was never quiet again, it was filled with baby giggles and steaming washing. Emma took in washing from Measham Hall and the local farming families, she was determined to contribute to the household budget. The washing was hard work in the winter but she took great pleasure in the summer seeing the white sheets and towels stretched over the bushes in the garden bleaching in the sunshine. They kept a pig in a shed in the back garden it ate table scraps and provided them with bacon and pork through the winter. Emma always took the children to church on the day the pig was killed, she could not bear to hear its screams as its throat was cut.
She was capable of preparing meals from the head and the trotters etc and salting down the meat but she was too sentimental to watch the animal she had fed for nine month butchered.
It was on one of these occasions that she had first met Jenny Hewetson, the Vicar’s younger daughter. Jenny was a bright friendly girl and took pity on the young mother
amusing her babies in the cold church. ‘Mrs Stevenson you must join the sewing circle.’
‘Oh, Miss Hewetson that is not for working class women like me.’ Emma protested.
But this unlikely friendship meant that she was able to hold her head high when her mother-in-law had deigned to visit them after Elizabeth’s birth. Emma remembered welcoming her graciously, Mary Stevenson had lifted up her skirts and swept into the small but immaculate kitchen where a cheery fire was blazing in the hearth and the bonny baby was sleeping in the dresser drawer. She could find no fault with the housekeeping or her son’s health.
All this was going through Emma’s mind as the photograph was being taken. The hard years had rolled by but hardly showed in her face, all you could see was an enigmatic smile and those hands tightly clasped on her Bible.
Emma sat in the third row of the array of serious faces, her hands clasped in her black clad lap, still for once, a condition that was for them unusual. They were rough hands with broad fingers and short nails. Capable hands, hands that could just as easily wring a chicken’s neck as tend a fractious child. Emma was only thirty-three years of age but she looked like a woman deserving respect. She was small, five foot two inches tall; giving birth to twelve children had taken its toll on her once shapely figure. Her hair was still jet black, scraped back off her forehead and divided down the middle, caught in a tidy bun at the back. Not a hair escaped this confinement.