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| FRANCES GOES NORTH FOR WEST | |
| By bluecity | ||||||||||
| 02 August 2007 | ||||||||||
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This is based, loosely, on a family story. Frances Fussell (her real name) was my great-grandmother and she was, indeed, packed off on a stagecoach, alone, at the age of 12 to Leicester, to live with her Aunt and Uncle West. She was also, by all accounts, a very strong woman, who liked her own way and ruled everybody's lives. Frances settled in Leicester and died there in 1910, the mother of 7 children and grandmother of many more. There are many other stories to be told about Frances. At the grand age of 12, Frances Fussell did not intend to wear pinafores. At the first opportunity, by the stile to the forty-acre field, in fact, she had taken off the white, full-length pinafore which her mother had insisted upon, and she was now walking along the road to Westbury in her best dress, pink candy striped cotton, calf-length, with a fashionably straight skirt, which had made clambering through fields of ripe corn a few minutes earlier rather difficult. In fact, she had almost lost her straw hat, which, only last night, she had trimmed with the same pink candy stripe as her dress. She had considered leaving the pinafore there at the stile, but, having lived her life, perhaps not in poverty but not far off, she had, instead, thriftily folded it and placed on top of the items in her wicker basket. She could cut it up and make it into something else, knickers perhaps. Frances walked on, into the town, past the cavernous and rather grand Parish Church of All Saints, whose loud, heavy peal of bells would clang through her bedroom window in the summer evenings, after she had been “put to bed”. Mama was always putting Frances to bed, when it was still light and life was still going on in the street below. She stopped at last outside The Lopes Arms and waited, passing the time by rummaging through the contents of her wicker basket: the pinafore, some bread and cheese for her lunch, another dress, a shawl, some underwear, and an old-fashioned silver-backed hairbrush, given her by Mama in a belated paroxysm of guilt. The contents of this basket would have to last her for the rest of her life. Then the stage arrived, and there was much bustling about at the inn, the head porter calling and shouting pompously, as tired, sweating horses were led away, and fresh horses harnessed. Last minute passengers, Frances included, bought tickets from the booking office. Frances thought she did well to get a corner seat, until old Mrs Todd plonked her large behind in between Frances and the gentleman in the opposite corner, dumped a crate of chickens on the coach floor, and beamed munificently at everybody. Suddenly, the doors were slammed shut and Frances felt the coach jerk forward. As they clattered through the streets, out of Westbury, Frances knew that this was forever. A creature of her time, she was not sentimental, knew that this was how things happened sometimes, but she nevertheless leaned out of the carriage window, mentally noting every detail and staring intently at Westbury’s one claim to fame, the Westbury White Horse, which King Alfred the Great’s men had created by stripping the turf from the chalk downs, as she had learned on one of her infrequent attendances at the church school. Frances had no real concept of King Alfred, nor really of Queen Victoria now on the throne, whose dull black likeness hung on the schoolroom wall. Mama was sniffy about school, said she herself had managed without it, and, besides, Frances was needed at home. “Well, young Fanny!” exclaimed Mrs Todd, swivelling round her massive rear. “Where might you be going, me dear? Your aunt Florence lives in Limpley Stoke, and all your family are local.” Mrs Todd’s sharp grey eyes bore down upon Frances’ fresh young face: she wasn’t just making conversation; she wanted to know. “To think …..” Mrs Todd carried on, without allowing Frances even to draw breath, “of you travelling all alone on the common stage. And no-one came to see you off - did they?” she added, shaking her head disapprovingly. “I'm 12 years old! I'm can mind for myself!” Frances retorted hotly, at once catching the unspoken criticism of Mama. This was not to say that Frances and Mama had lived together in perfect harmony. “Your Aunt and Uncle West in Leicester have sent for you,” Mama had said suddenly, only a few weeks ago. “They won’t stand any nonsense.” Frances’ jaw had dropped in amazement. “Don’t gape so, Fanny,” Mrs Fussell had chided. “It doesn’t become you.” She had held up a felt purse. “My sister West has sent me 5 guineas to pay for your journey, on the stage.” Frances had continued to “gape”. “And there. Baby’s crying again. Go along, Fanny.” It was always thus. Frances was the oldest. Frances did it all. Mama had the babies; Frances looked after them. “I'm travelling to Leicester,” Fanny replied, shortly, to Mrs Todd. “Leominster?” queried Mrs Todd. “No, ma’am. Leicester.” “And where might that be, me dear? Beyond Melksham, I’ll be bound!” Why had her Aunt and Uncle West sent for her? Was it to bear her aunt company? Why had her parents let her go so readily? She knew the answer to that only too well ……………… “Fanny, do as you’re told!” “Fanny, don’t answer back!” had run off her mother’s tongue all Frances’ life and particularly of late. All too often it had been “Fanny, go without your tea!” - except that never worked, because her younger sister, Caroline, would bring her bread and jam in her pinafore. Aunt and Uncle West must be rich. She supposed (hoped) that they were rich. One thing was for sure. She wasn’t going to be called Fanny anymore and she would not be looking after children either. Old Mrs Todd got off the stage at the next village, whereas Frances and the stage went on until nightfall, when they rested at Newbury. The kindly landlady at the coaching inn found Frances a room and the boy behind the counter had bade her “Goodnight Miss”, making her feel really grown up, but then the kindly landlady spoiled it by calling up to her a few minutes later, “Little girl! Will you be all right? Would you like somebody come and sleep with you?” Frances carried on in the stage, for another day and a half. They arrived in Leicester in the middle of the afternoon. Frances thought it looked very strange, hardly any trees and fields, a very narrow, dank black canal, the building stone here red brick, except that, mostly, it wasn’t red at all but blackened by black factory smoke. The town was a large one, much larger than Westbury, and they seemed to travel forever along narrow, cobbled streets, dingy and dark because of the buildings, which overhung them. In Mama’s latter, Uncle West had said that he would meet her at the coaching inn, but they had gone so far now that they must have missed it. Frances got twitchy and demanded to be set down at once, in what seemed to be the main street, which was called “Gallowtree Gate”. That was not very nice, Frances thought. Frances hesitated momentarily. Gallowtree Gate looked pretty unwelcoming, a sort of grey greasy dust clinging to everything, walls, windows, even her own hands, but, over the last few days, Frances had learned the golden rule of all travellers: don’t stand about looking lost, don’t look at maps, just keep walking. She was standing in front of The Earl of Stamford. That must be the coaching inn, she decided, so she stepped inside purposefully. Sawdust covered the floor and, apart from the roughly hewn wooden bar, there was nothing, not even a chair or a table, rather, thought Frances, as if the bailiff had just visited. Four workmen leaned against the bar in the bare saloon, ogling her openly. They weren’t like the farm labourers in Wiltshire. Their rough trousers and jackets were not bespattered with mud – a sign of honest toil - but with this grey greasy dust, in the folds of their neck cloths even, in their hair and the stubble on their chins. One of them smirked. “What can we do for you, me duck?” Another of the men sniggered. “A know what A could do with a bit of stuff like her, right enough!” The one who was leaning heavily on the side of the bar (as if he might even be the landlord) raised himself heavily. “A pretty little thing, to be sure,” he muttered with another snigger. Frances stood her ground. She didn’t panic. Frances was a child of her time. Frances was tough. “If you please, sir ……” She addressed herself to the man who might be the landlord. “Could you show me to the coaching inn?” By this time, she was sure this place was not it. The men laughed her down. “You don’t want to get the wrong side of him, me duck,” said one, nodding at the landlord. “He’s Dick Cain …………… He’s fought in the ring ……………” “……… Poor Dick’s too sizzled for anything now,” retorted another. He winked at Frances and grabbed hold of her arm, crushing her flesh against her bone. “Tell you what, love. You come along with me, me duck, and A’ll show you ……… the coaching inn ……………” As a last resort, a girl could scream! That’s what her elder cousin Violet used to say ………… Then, thank Goodness, a woman appeared, the landlady, a baby in her arms and a runny-nosed toddler clutching her apron. “Now then, now then!” she cried. “Give uvver, will you, give uvver!” she added, spitting with rage. Immediately Frances’s arm was released and the three men shot out the bar, leaving only the landlord. The landlady adjusted the ragged child, asleep heavily on her shoulder, and turned on her husband. “What do you think you’re doing, Dick Cain, allowing that sort in here? Or can't you think? Is your pathetic Irish brain addled with drink as usual? Our beer ……………… beer that’s bought to keep us ……… and your family ……… in business …………” “Stop yer noise now, woman ……………” he began, but she took no notice. She turned to Frances. “This is no place for you, child. You look respectable enough.” “If you please, ma’am,” Frances replied, “my uncle ……………… Mr West ………… is waiting for me, in the coaching inn.” She wondered if the landlady had heard of Mr West, seeing as he was rich. (She hoped he was rich.) The landlady raised the hatch on the bar. “The Bell Hotel? I'll take you myself, me duck.” “You’re going nowhere, woman!” interjected the landlord, raising his hand, but he was too drunk to hit her now, although there were bruises already on her arm. “D’you know who I am? I'm Dick Cain …………… Dick Cain from Dublin, Dublin’s fair city, where the girls are so pretty ………………” he slurred on, hardly able to keep his balance, even though both hands held fast on the bar. “The Earl of Stamford, he was my backer ………… If you would be mentioning my name to the Earl ……………” Totally ignoring him, the landlady took Frances’ arm and led her out. In the doorway, they bumped into a tall thin man, wearing a very ordinary suit, a clerk, Frances guessed. “Beg pardon, ma’am, and miss,” he said, raising his topper. “Would this young lady be our niece, Frances Fussell, from Wiltshire?” “Uncle West?” asked Frances tentatively. She had never met him before. “Yes, me duck,” he replied, taking her wicker basket. “Let’s hurry on now, our Frances. Your Aunt West will have tea on t’ table.” There was no carriage. They walked about a mile through streets of new red brick terraced houses until Uncle West stopped in front of one of them and, saying, “Here we are!” pushed open the door. Three girls in pinafores and a boy in knickerbockers, accompanied by a yapping dog, came rushing down the stairs, calling out, “Papa! Papa!” “This is Cousin Fanny,” he said. “She will be looking after you. Mind you do as she says.”
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