Marple and the Chartists 8

Marple

December 1842 - January 1843

Mrs. Isherwood continued to talk to me on most of my mornings at Marple Hall - and let me know that she was keeping abreast of the situation regarding the Chartists who were in prison in Chester. One day she said, “You don’t need to worry so much about Johnny. He is not doing so badly.”

I asked her what she meant by that, but she rushed off to attend to some other task. I told Beth what she had said, and asked if she had had anymore letters from Johnny. She was sorry to admit that she had not heard from him after his first note, but wasn’t surprised as it no doubt would be difficult for him to get a hold of paper and buy stamps. I suggested that with Christmas coming up, we should buy him a present and send it, but she didn’t know what we could send or how it could be organised.

“Well, why don’t we send him paper and some stamps? Then he might write to you.”

So on her next afternoon off, she bought some writing paper and five penny stamps, and we posted them off with a note from her to Johnny in the prison.

It was not long after that we each had a note from him. Hers was sent to the parsonage where she worked and mine was sent to Marple Hall. Mrs. Isherwood thought it very strange that I should be receiving letters there, and when she brought it to me, you could see how curious she was as to what it contained, especially as it had a Chester postmark.

I eagerly opened it - thinking that Beth would have told him that I had suggested sending the paper and he was writing thank you to me. But my face fell when I opened it. There were only four words written on it. I WILL GET YOU.

Mrs. Isherwood could tell by my reaction that it was not good news as I had expected, and she took the note out of my hand and read it herself.

“Oh, my dear,” she said, “that it should come to this. For your good intentions in trying to help me save Marple Hall you are now being threatened. And after all I have done for that young man too. Now you just get on with your work and forget all about this.”

It wasn’t until later when I recalled these words that I wondered what she had meant by them. In what way had she helped him? She was responsible for him being identified by the authorities in Stockport, but that was hardly helping him.

Christmas was very pleasant that year as always. We were given an extra day off from our work, and school had a week’s recess. I had money of my own for once, and could buy presents for my parents, sister and brothers without having to hand make them all. It was a typical Christmas - with the house decorated with greenery from the fields - holly and ivy. We went to church and afterwards had a goose dinner, with all the trimmings, and a huge Christmas pudding. It was the highlight of the year.

Our lives came back to a reality early in January, back to school and of course the morning work at the hall. Now that I had finished my project on John Bradshawe I no longer needed to go there on Sunday afternoons and I found that I missed that activity, although at the time I couldn’t wait for it to be done so that I would have some free time. I was putting the final touches to it at home and would present it to my teacher in a week or so, but I very much wanted to get Mrs. Isherwood’s blessing on it first. After work the day after I had finished it in my most careful handwriting, I knocked on the door of the parlour and when she bid me come in, I asked her if she would like to look at my finished project. She, of course, had forgotten all about it. She had never been around on those Sundays when I had been doing my research. But once she was reminded, she took it from me, and asked if she could keep it for a few days in order to do a proper job of looking through it. I agreed readily, as I was very proud of it and wanted her to appreciate all the work I had gone into.

It was a good week later when Mrs. Isherwood came to find me while I was dusting in the library, and said would I come into the parlour, as Mr. Isherwood would like to see me.

That did surprise me! I knew a Mr. Isherwood existed, as of course it was he who had inherited the hall. Mrs. Isherwood was a Ballairs and her family came from somewhere South. I had heard all the gossip about them from the servants as we ate in the kitchen. Mrs. Isherwood’s brother, Charles Ballairs had married Mr. Isherwood’s sister, Anna Maria, and they now lived in Warwickshire. But it was also common knowledge that Mr. Thomas Isherwood, who was about the same age as Mrs. Isherwood but very thin and pale so looked much older, was not well. The exact type of his illness was not known, but it certainly had something to do with his nerves. Mrs. Isherwood seemed to do all the managing of the house. I had seen Mr. Isherwood from a distance but this would be the first time that I would have spoken to him personally.

He was sitting on the big chair in the parlour which of course I had many times dusted, and as I came in he rose to his feet. I wondered if he would have done that if it had only been me and not his wife as well. I thought not.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Isherwood, “have you met our little Eliza Hyde? She has been working half days for us since September. And because she was so interested in Marple Hall, her teacher suggested that she do the project on it that you have before you there.”

Mr. Isherwood gathered himself together and as if it was very difficult for him he spoke slowly and softly. “I have read the project from beginning to end and thought it very fine. Tell me, where did you get all your information about my infamous ancestor?”

“It is all in your library, sir. I didn’t make it up. I just looked in various books and such like. Mrs. Isherwood told me I could. I wouldn’t have gone rustling through papers if she hadn’t said it was all right. And I put everything back just as it was.”

He laughed. “I am very sure you did just that. I am not in any way criticising what you did or how you did it. I just find it interesting that you managed to find out more than I know and probably more than most of my relatives knew about our illustrious John Bradshawe.

"What will you do with this project when your teacher and class have seen it?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I will keep it.”

“I wonder if you would let us keep it here at the Hall - giving you full credit for having written it of course. I think my brothers and cousins would be very interested to read it. You have done such a good job of it too, with careful handwriting and spelling.”

“I did take great care sir, but I didn’t know whether sometimes in those days they might have used different words than I did, or spelled things differently. I did my best.”

“I am sure you did, Eliza, and if you agree to letting me have it here at the Hall, after you have showed it to your class, I would like to pay you for it. Because this is as good a bit of history of Marple Hall as has been done for some time, and you are our little local historian.”

“Oh, no, sir. I couldn’t let you pay me for it.”

“Well, you take it with you now, and if you agree to let us have it later, we will have words about this again. Are you enjoying working at our house?”

“Oh, yes sir, thank you sir. I love working here. The furniture and the tapestries and the china and the silver. It is all so wonderful.”

“My wife tells me that you are doing a good job of learning to be a housemaid. I daresay one day you might become a housekeeper, if you keep up the good work.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful, sir. I will try to keep learning all I can.”

Mrs. Isherwood had been quiet through this whole exchange, but now she said, “I too, Eliza, thought your work most special and was very impressed with it. I’m sure your teacher and class will be too. Now you had best get back to the library, as I could see that you were busy with the windows.”

I was ever so chuffed as I went back to school that day, clutching my project to me as I went. I gave it to Mrs. Earnhill right away - and she seemed surprised to see it. I think she had forgotten she had ever given me the project. “I will look at it later,” she said rather dismissively.

So time went on, and I couldn’t understand why Mrs. Earnhill had not said something about my project. I knew it was good. I had spent such a lot of time on it, and the Isherwoods had thought it so good as to want to keep it. But when I knocked on her door after school and asked about it, she seemed rather embarrassed.

“Oh yes, Eliza. I did have a look at your project, and can see you put such a lot of time into it. However I don’t think it is really suitable for us to do as a school play - as you seem to intend. Instead why don’t you do a quick summary of the main points of John Bradshawe - the historical facts if you don’t mind - and not any of the extra touches that you made up to make it more humourous, and that should do. Perhaps you would be good enough to do that tomorrow.”

“I didn’t make it up. It is all as he wrote it. Those are his very words.”

“Now Eliza. I grant you that you did a good job, but I will not have you lie about it. John Bradshawe was a judge and he did the job he had to do - but all that bit about how he felt about the King and Oliver Cromwell. That was very naughty of you to put that in. I’m sure he wouldn’t have said those things. He was an important man and he wouldn’t have made fun of King James and King Charles. He might not have liked them, but he would have spoken of them with respect, I am sure. You make him out to be a very rough fellow in his speech. I just will not have it. Unless you can keep yourself to the facts as they are presented in the history books, then I would rather not have it at all. Now are you prepared to do that?”

I don’t know what came over me. I am not usually so bold and I do respect my teacher. Up until now I thought very highly of her. “No, I won’t change a word of it. If you won’t believe it is as it was, and that I have not made it up, then I won’t present it at all.”

“Now Eliza, you are vexing me. You are still a lowly student here in this school, although you may think yourself very high and mighty when you go around with your friends from Marple Hall. You will apologise at once.”

“I will not.”

Then she did something that I couldn’t for the life of me believe was happening. She took my project and she hurled it into the fire. It was a roaring fire and my papers flared into a torch.”

“You witch!” I shouted. “You have destroyed hundreds of hours of hard work. Mr. and Mrs. Isherwood were prepared to pay me for that and to show it to their friends and relatives. They believed me. They are worth hundreds of you. I hate you.”

“You are expelled. You may not come to this school again, and you will not have any qualifications or references to take with you. I will be writing to your employers and telling them of what you have said and done, and I expect they will cease your employment forthwith. You may go now, but I never want to see you here again.”

I cried all the way home, and then I cried as I lay on my bed. My mother tried to get me to tell her what was wrong, but I couldn’t stop crying to explain. When I finally got the words out it was the destruction of my project that I was most upset about - not being expelled from school without a reference. But my mother saw it differently.

“You must go back at once and apologise. Say that you didn’t know what you were saying. Say that you had a brain storm and now that you realise you are humbly sorry. You must go back. Without your leaving certificates what sort of job will you be able to get in the future. The Isherwoods won’t stay here forever - and they may well not keep employing you. You must go back, Eliza, at once, and see if you can bend this situation.”

I refused. I felt that as I had been in the right, for me to go back and grovel would be a denial of any integrity that I had. So my mother told me that if I would not, she hoped that Mrs. Isherwood would give me a full time job - because she had had enough of my high faluting ways. She thought it was time that I left home, if I was too important for school and to listen to what my mother told me.

I assumed she was just angry, and started crying again, but when by the next morning she still was not speaking to me, and my father also was very angry with me, I knew that I had no choice but to see if the Isherwoods would take me on full time and house me as well.