Sheep, spirits and smugglers 1

here's a sequel to Cousin Prudence which didn't make it past novella, and I want to do something with it; the question is, shall I expand it to be a novel, or see about writing a second novella to put with it?

In which Mr Knightley goes on a trip to purchase more sheep, and Mrs Knightley decides to accompany him, and they discover that smuggling intrudes its ugly head into a peaceful sheep fair 

Chapter 1

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a spiteful and malicious woman needs gossip as much as she needs food and drink.  It is equally a fact that if there is no gossip to be had, she will draw inferences from perceived facts and truly believe her own phantasm.

Mrs. Augusta Elton, being such a woman, never caused Emma Knightley so much dread as when she was smiling.  The more honeyed the smile, the more bitter the poison dripping from Mrs. Elton’s tongue might be expected to be.

The smile was sweetness personified, and Emma mentally girded up her loins for the fray as the older woman approached her.  It struck Emma how very much older Mrs Elton looked these days; for a handsome woman, the lines of discontent on her face had aged her considerably, and the effect was not helped by the multiplicity of frilled collars on the vicar’s wife’s gown.

“Ah, my poor Emma, it has come to this, has it?” Mrs. Elton simulated sympathy.

“What has come to what?” asked Emma, bluntly.

“Why, had you not heard?  It is all about the village that Mister Knightley is going off on a jaunt.”

“Mr. Knightley is going to Nepcutt* Sheep Fair,” said Emma.  “Hardly a jaunt; to increase our stock after this year without a summer is essential for the wellbeing of our tenants and dependants.  As landowners we have to consider such things,” she added, with a false smile of her own, since this was a point which rankled with the vicar’s wife.

“Is that what he told you?  Of course, you have to take his words at face value,” said Mrs. Elton.  “He would not wish you to know if he was seeing anyone, of course.”

“He’ll be seeing a lot of people, mostly shepherds,” said Emma.  “Come, Augusta, why not say what you mean, so you may get the embarrassment caused by your usual fabrications into the open?”

“Why, Emma ....”

“Mrs. Knightley.  I did not give you permission to use my given name, Augusta,” said Emma.  “Your husband holds the living from my husband.  Be aware of that.”

Augusta Elton paled.

“I cannot help it if you feel like being spiteful because your husband is having an affaire,” she said, sulkily.

“Oh, I do not feel in the least spiteful; but it is time you were put in your place,” said Emma. “You have been spreading rumours that my Cousin Prudence married in indecent haste, and questioning her husband’s bona fides, and if you are about to tell lies about my husband, then you should understand that I will be starting to consider having your husband summonsed for your slanders.”

Two bright spots of angry colour appeared on Augusta Elton’s cheeks.

“You will be sorry when you find the truth one day,” she said. “Why should Mr Knightley go himself when he can send his man, Larkins?”

“The truth?  The truth is that my husband and I are going to Nepcutt Fair together to look at sheep.  Only sheep.” Emma managed to keep her voice level. “Because it is a responsibility above what he feels he should place on Mr Larkins, to make such extensive purchases as he intends.”

Horror sprang into Mrs. Elton’s eyes.

“Y ... you are going too?  I ... I had no idea.”

“No; we do not chatter like squirrels about our affairs, nor do we do so about those of other people.  Good day to you,” said Emma, turning on her heel and stalking off, glad that her pregnancy was not so far advanced as to turn a dignified stalk into a waddle.

Emma came upon her husband and Mr. Larkins leaning on a gate looking at sheep, in a thin, watery sunshine.  Emma was still unaccountably nervous of Mr.  Larkins, but she was too indignant to shy from him, and greeted him by name as she nodded to George Knightley.

“You are all ruffled, like a partridge in the wind, my love, what is wrong?” asked George.

“That woman should be rolled in a ditch and dragged backwards by her ankles through several hedges!” burst out Emma.

“You met Mrs. Elton, I presume?  What’s she been up to now, for I fear even as magistrate, I could not sentence her to that.  Only to a whipping if you cared to take her to law for slander.” George rightly surmised that only one woman could disturb his Emma’s equilibrium so much.

“She said you were going to Nepcutt Fair in order to see some other woman,” said Emma, bluntly, “and I said that was impossible as I was going with you.”

“That woman’s tongue is full o’ dag locks,” said William Larkins.  “She be the most pizenous critter I ever did know, Mrs. Knightley and you don’t ought to take account o’ her maunderings.  Reckon it’d do you the world o’ good to go fer a trip with Mr. Knightley and all.”

“William, have you considered my wife’s condition?” asked George.

“Mr. Knightley, that don’t do the in-lamb ewes any harm to frolic on the hillside, and it don’t do womankind no harm either if they’ve a mind to it,” said Mr.  Larkins.

“Why, Mr.  Larkins, I believe I like you more than I knew,” said Emma.

“You never had cause to dislike me, Mrs. Knightley, just for ticking you off once or twice when you was a heedless liddle thing,” said Mr.  Larkins.  “Tis this road, Mrs. Knightley.  Some people say that sheep are just silly critters that are all alike; but it ain’t so.  They’re much like yuman bein’s in many ways.”

Emma gave Mr.  Larkins a quizzical look.

“William, are you about to produce an allegory?” asked Mr George Knightley; he knew well enough that Mr Larkins concealed a dry humour beneath his dour and taciturn exterior.

“Why Mr Knightley, I do not know as you would take it that way,” said Mr Larkins. “I meant but to describe one or two of our sheep with the names I give them to amuse Mrs. Knightley, and cheer her up.”

“I fancy I too am likely to be amused,” murmured Mr Knightley “Pray not too outrageous, Will.”

Mr Larkins gave a rare, shy grin.

“Well now, Mrs. Knightley, I was going to explain that of the ewes and wethers, the steadiest and most orthodox wether is given a bell and called the bell-wether; one as leads the flock as you might say.  And our bell-wether is called Pip; he know exactly where he ought to be going, but if any of the others annoy him, well, he’s like to leap off and go his own way afore returning, like as not with burrs in his coat,” said Mr Larkin.  “Mortal convinced of his own rightness is Pip, and though he know the right road to take home and foller it accordingly, he have no more sense than to walk in dirt.  And there’s an ewe as would like to do the leading and keeps agitatin’ at Pip; Gussie I calls her.  Boughten in she be; and think herself someat special to be part merino but when all’s said and done she were got rid of in a hurry account of the herd she be from be mostly Herdwicks as have dark fleeces.  And don’t she hate Emblem, what have the softest fleece outside of Sussex; though she’s a wild one is Emblem, allus tryin’ to second guess where she’m bein’ led.”

“Steady, William,” said Mr Knightley

Mr Larkins grinned.

“Well, Emblem is bein’ put to tup, happen having lambs will steady her,” he said.

“Close to the knuckle,” warned Mr Knightley.  “I think you should lay off Emblem – and her line.”

“As you wish, Mr Knightley,” said Mr Larkins.

“Mr. Larkins, I perceive I have underestimated you,” said Emma.  “I wager you could tell a few more stories of your sheep.”

“Happen I could, Mrs. Knightley, but I think that will do to be going on with,” said Mr.  Larkins, with a slow, countryman’s wink.  Emma was blushing, but she was laughing as well, and George was delighted to see his wife restored to good humour.

“You must have your work cut out with such sheep, Will,” he said.

“Ar, no more than the magistrate with the yumans,” said Mr.  Larkins.

“Your point, I think,” said George.  “You have no delicacy of mind, Will.”

“Mrs. Knightley don’t need delicacy o’ mind, sir, she need a good laugh,” said Mr.  Larkins.  “Don’t you take what that besom says with anything but a pinch o’ salt, Mrs. Knightley, and you have a good time looking at sheep in Nepcutt.  They have a dance there too.”

“Do they? How splendid,” said Emma.  “When do we go? And where is it exactly?” she took her husband’s arm as he offered it, to walk her home.

“Nepcutt Green is near Findon, on the coast.  It’s on the road to Worthing; the road goes directly there.  It is not above twenty three or four miles; I would generally expect to travel there in around three hours and stay overnight and then return the evening of the day of the fair having concluded my business.”

“When is it?” asked Emma.

“It is always held on the fourteenth of September” said George “That is a Saturday this year; I have consulted an almanac.”

“Oh Mr. Knightley!” Emma cried. “That would mean travelling on Friday the thirteenth; and whilst I am not in general in any wise superstitious, I fear that such a thought fills me with dread; for have they not but lately caught a highwayman on that road?”

“Yes; but if he is caught, then he is not about to be plying his trade,” said George practically.  “We could go on the Thursday I suppose but it would mean being absent from your father for another day.  I am still not sure that I am happy about you coming, you will be quite six months into your pregnancy,” he added, now they were out of earshot of Mr. Larkins.

 “We might travel on the Thursday and be more likely to find accommodation; and then stay over to the Monday so I do not get tired and we do not travel on the Sabbath. Women travel of necessity when they are further gone; the women who were refugees before Napoleon’s troops had little choice,” argued Emma. “And they had not the comfort of their own chaise with the most up to date springs.  I have discovered that I like to travel to see new places – for a short while – and it will cheer me up when I am otherwise full of the crotchets from my condition.  Now I have stopped being sick in the mornings I feel a new woman!”

George considered.  Emma was indeed blooming; and he hated to be parted from her.

“Your father will worry,” he said.

“We shall not tell him how far we go; only that it is to a sheep fair, where we will spend a long time in order to rest me well,” said Emma, who knew very well how to handle her father.  “What is it that you look for? You had not had time to say more than that you planned to be away, and if that woman corners me again, I will need to know what I am talking about.”

“Merinos,” said George, succinctly.  “A few were, er, liberated from Spain and brought into the country some four years ago; and I’ve a mind to get more of the stock into our native sheep.  It’s said they carry Merino anyway but merino wool is so fine and lustrous, it is top quality.  And would combine so well with the long staple of Gervase’s Lincolns.  As well as selling well to the shawl makers who combine it with silk.  It has one of the finest strands there is you know and the quantity of the fleece is good too.  The staple is anything up to four inches long, all over two and a half inches, so not as short as some.  I should like, too, to see what sort of sheep may come of crossing a Lincoln with a Merino.”

“It is quite fascinating,” said Emma. “I had never reflected, until we knew Prudence, just how much goes into the making of cloth.  And we indeed are the starting point.  I will not, Mr. Knightley, share the chaise home with a sheep.”

George laughed as they came in the front door.

“I am not asking you to, Mrs.  Knightley,” he said. “Sheep are not so convivial as people in close company … I always, however, like to be in close company with my charming wife.”

“Why Mr. Knightley I thought you would never suggest it,” said Emma giggling and slipping her hand into his.

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* Yes, Nepcote was Nepcutt then