‘Heisold.’
‘He is not much older than me, so mind your tongue.’
Drake frowned at her sharp retort. ‘Do you know him?’
His mother unrolled the sleeves of her dress. ‘Not well,’ she said, fussing with the buttons on one of her sleeves. ‘He went to bible classes once, but not for long.’
Drake nodded. ‘Yes, he did mention that.’
His mother returned to the table and began to gather up invisible crumbs using sharp flicks of one hand to sweep them into her other cupped one. ‘Did he now?’ she muttered. She removed Drake’s plate, forcing him to rescue his bread as it passed under his nose.
‘I will have to pay him a fee upfront, but after that I will earn about three or four shillings a week. He does not want any eggs from you. He calls it bribery.’
‘I see,’ his mother replied quietly. She stood for a moment, as if deep in thought, his empty plate tilted slightly in her hand. Suddenly she came back to life. ‘So, Mr Timmins thinks my eggs aren’t good enough for him,’ she fumed. ‘Well, if he changes his mind, he knows where to find me. But he will have to ask nicely, or I will give him half a dozen addled ones. Bribery indeed!’ She turned and, to Drake’s surprise, dropped the plate into the pig pale used for peelings. ‘Silly man!’ he heard her mutter. ‘Silly foolish man!’
* * *
At dawn, Drake left his home and walked the quiet, narrow road from Perran Village to Carrack Estate to start his apprenticeship. Drake eventually found the building that would become his new home. Known as a ‘bothy’, it was built in the shadow of the kitchen garden’s north facing wall. To the gentry, it was ideally situated. It made use of land that was constantly in shadow, yet it was at close quarters to the vital, but vulnerable, vegetables and herbs that required constant monitoring and protecting.
The small building was originally built to accommodate up to eight apprentices. After forty years in constant shadow, its weakened rafters now creaked and groaned under its dipping slate roof. Drake wondered if Timmins’ reluctance to take on more apprentices was partly due to the poor state of the bothy, rather than his unwillingness to teach a student.
Drake tentatively opened the door. It was colder and darker inside than out, thanks to its thick granite walls and small windows. Drake paused, squinting until his eyes grew accustomed to the poorly lit rooms. In fact, the downstairs wasmade up of two rooms, one was sparsely furnished with two long benches and a wooden table for eating and study, the other professed to be a rudimentary kitchen and bathhouse. A ladder led to the upper floor and one large room. Here there was evidence that the place was inhabited. Seven beds, made of coarse, unplaned planks of pine, neatly lined the wall of each room, and beside each bed was a wooden box with a hinged lid where belongings could be stored. Dirty bed linen littered the floor, as if tossed aside in a hurry by the inhabitants. However, the smell of sleeping bodies still lingered in the air and Drake could see clearly the indents of their bodies in six of the straw mattresses, as if their spirits still slept while their bodies toiled outside.
Drake picked his way carefully through their scattered belongings and found an empty bed. He sat down on it and began to unpack the few items he had brought with him, a change of working clothes, books and journals on gardening and finally three gifts from his mother; a notebook, a pen and a pot of ink. He placed them carefully in his box and looked around him, unsure what to do next.
The sound of boots entering the room below resonated up through the floorboards. An old woman’s voice followed, accompanied by the smell of milk and oatmeal. Breakfast was being served downstairs. He was about to meet his fellow workers.
Drake later learnt that the bothy was home to one visiting journeyman and five boys who came from the local orphanage and had been sent to Carrack Estate to learn a trade. Four of the boys had arrived at the orphanage as babies, all within a month of each other, and the staff, either lacking imagination or motivation, had named them after the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The fifth, Abel Hicks, had arrived at the age of five and was the elder by two years. On reaching the ageof twelve, they had started work at Carrack Estate and they, like most children who had lived their lives in an orphanage, considered themselves fortunate to find bed, board and employment working out of doors upon leaving the institution. However, Drake was soon to learn that they were not so keen to welcome a newcomer into their group. Particularly one who had a home, a mother and an apprenticeship, all of which they lacked. Their opinion of him, Drake came to realise, had been made before his arrival and whatever he said or did would not change it for the better.
It was Luke who climbed the ladder first and found Drake sitting on the bed. The boy was slight in frame, with sandy hair and a thin, pinched face. He looked at Drake warily and called to the others who had remained below.
‘He’s arrived.’
The tone of his voice had little warmth and told Drake he was not welcome. Drake heard the others gather at the bottom, their voices a mixture of questions and orders. Someone must have tugged on Luke’s leg from below, for he looked down and silently retreated back down the ladder.
Another head appeared and looked at him. This boy was stockier than the first, with hair so short that Drake wondered if he had taken a razor to it the week before. His face was pitted and his nose was large and flat as if it had been broken. The boy looked at him through cold eyes partially hidden under heavy lids. He heaved himself into the room, stood up and braced himself. Those cold eyes stared back at him again. They were evenly matched in height, although Drake thought the boy was probably older by a year or two.
‘What’s your name?’ asked the boy, who Drake would later learn was Abel Hicks.
‘Drake Vennor.’
Abel’s gaze traced the length of his body, taking in his clean hair, clothes and boots. He sniffed and walked around him whilst the other four climbed the ladder and settled on their beds to watch. Unconsciously, the muscles in Drake’s body tightened in readiness. It was not the welcome he had hoped for.
Abel looked over his belongings, his gaze finally settling on Drake’s books. Drake braced himself but held his tongue. The boy had not done anything yet, best not jump to conclusions as to what he might do.
Abel picked a book up, opened it and began to roughly flick through the pages. Finally, he settled on a page. Imitating a gentleman’s accent, Abel began to read. The orphanage taught him to read, thought Drake, but not how to be friendly.
‘Using the es-pal-ier technique allows the growth of fruit trees to grow effi-ciently in a limited space.’
The boys laughed at his impersonation as they turned expectant eyes on Drake.
‘Espalier?’ asked Luke between gasps. ‘What’s espalier?’ His neighbour, Matthew, sobered and dug him in the ribs to be quiet.
‘Binding and trimming the branches of fruit trees to increase yield in a limited space,’ replied Drake evenly. He reached out his hand for the book, mindful that Abel had already soiled two of the pages with his earth-covered fingers.
Abel closed the book noisily and dropped it on the floor before Drake could take it. The book landed with a thud. Mark, the only boy still laughing, fell silent.
‘Fancy words are of no use when there is work to be done.’ Abel tilted his chin and looked at Drake down the bridge of his nose. ‘You ain’t anyone special, Vennor. You will have to work the same as we. Your books ain’t going to help you shovel shit and don’t you forget it.’
