Many years ago, down in the West Country part of England, sweet innocent Celia Manson is prepared for her coming of age ceremony in accordance with local tradition so she is dressed in her finery and taken to the Rosary for Squire Trelawney to make her a woman...
"Are you all right in there our Celia." she heard her father shout.
Celia looked around the room, the windows misted with steam hiding the snow covered roofs of the barns and the trees and open countryside stretching to the moor land beyond. She looked at the clock on the dressing table but its pendulum was still. Her Mother's best hat and Fathers waistcoat lay together upon the shelf as it was their bedroom she had today been allowed to use for her preparations, and there on a chair-back and laid abed her virginal white gowns awaited their moment.
The water in the iron hip bath gently lost its scalding heat to become just warm on her soft skin and the expensive soft soap sent for the purpose from the Squires own store house felt delicious as she washed away the dust and grime of the farmyard and milking shed, ready for her visit to the Rosary as the manor house or Hall of Trelawney was known.
"Yes Father what's the time."
"It's five and twenty to five o'clock."
"I'm nearly done Father."
She looked at her new clothes laid out for the evening, pure white skirt and underskirt with a pure white corset with red ribbons which she hardly needed with her thin waist and the pure white blouse, all brand new, sent from the hall for her interview with Squire Trelawney just an hour hence.
She climbed carefully from the warm water and dried herself with the sheepskin, the smooth silk of the underthings felt most peculiar as she dressed so carefully desperate to keep the white cloth pristine and unsullied for her interview, she remembered her instructions, boots before skirt, she grasped the bleached white leather firmly and hauled the boots on with all her might but these were the footwear of idle courtesans and her honest country feet were ill at ease constricted by the leather where as often as not she worked barefoot in the milking shed or wore sensible boots when walking the ten miles and more to visit her cousins at Granton,
Celia checked her appearance in the mirror, her white skirt almost brushing the floor despite the rise the high heels of the special long bleached white leather boots which forced her to walk strangely awkwardly and uncomfortably and she crept quietly from her parents bedroom and ducked under the low door frame to the smaller room where she slept, she peered from the low window and saw the Squires small cart approaching, just a two wheel Jaunting cart where she dreamed of a Landau, with four not two in harness to pull. She continued along, descending the tight spiral staircase to the living room.
"Oh Celia!" her mother cried, "You look just like an angel."
"It is time mother." Celia told her sadly "I saw the cart coming from the bedroom."
"Now bear what comes stoically" he father bade her.
"I don't know what stoically is, but I shall remember my manners and act with honour."
Poor Bill Manders nearly choked, were she to act with honour, with Squire Trelawney around, why they would surely be evicted.
"Well don't upset his lordship, you do his bidding girl, one word from he and we are out upon the streets, don't thee forget it." Bill insisted.
Celia carefully wrapped rags around her shiny boots before she kissed Bill and Emma, her mother and walked out into the yard to mount the cart ready to proceed towards the big house, she smiled her radiant smile and waved before she climbed aboard.
Bill turned to Emma, "Did you tell her what to expect?"
"No, Bill, no one ever told me, we don't have your country ways at Granton." she explained. Bill thought back to that day they first met, when the squire trusted him to collect some luggage from Granton and he met Emma as she toiled in her father's shop, he remembered their courtship and their wedding day until Emma interupted his thoughts.
"Did you say anything." Emma asked hopefully.
"I could not." he said simply, and tears welled in his eyes.
"Then she knows nothing? nothing but what she learned from the farmyard?" Emma asked again.
"That's your place Emma, father and child cannot speak of such things, but tomorrow we will know, we shall surely know."
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Alf Biggins sat in the squire's jaunting cart, holding the reins loosely as they trotted along, a big ugly stupid man he usually drove the farm carts so this light two wheel cart was a pleasant change, he stared at Celia's and leered at her beauty relishing the delights to come.
"What happens tonight Bill." Celia asked innocently.
Bill looked round sharply and tugged the reins, Couper, the nearside horse stopped dead with the jolt upon his tender mouth while Armitage the off, continued twisting the shaft pole which strained the bindings and then suddenly "Crack" the shaft snapped with a sound like gunfire and the cart fell down backwards upon the ground. The horses bolted and Alf released the reins and watched them run in awkward curves as the pole and harnesses still bound them together.
They fell back, sprawling helplessly in the upset cart, and seeing him bleeding she asked "Are you all right Mr Biggins?"
"Yes, me head" he croaked, "Can you walk the last bit miss?"
"If you are sure you're all right?" she asked.
"Yes go." he replied, "here take this and bind it round your dainty boots, keep them clean," he said and her tore a piece of cloth in two and handed it to her.
Celia looked carefully at her robes as she picked her way from the ruins, a small patch of dust sullied a sleeve but to her relief little damage was done. She set forth for the Manor, her backside wiggled a like a cows behind she feared as the cloth now bound round her boots made her walk on the tips of her toes and each step needed the effort of three but she plodded onwards stoically.
John Trelawney sat in his bath looking at the steam dampened bathroom walls, his finery laid out upon the hangers, moleskin, silk, the full regalia, how he had relished evenings such as these in his youth, but now he had grown old and weary, and he knew he had become just a sad caricature of the country squire he had once striven to be.
Forty three years, was it really forty three years since he arrived upon this earth, he was sure it was more like sixty, and was it really two years since his beloved Rose had passed away. He glanced at the water closet where often one sat while the other bathed, and the sadness engulfed him.
He climbed from the deep water careful not to unseat the metal tub and tear away its brittle leaden pipes, and extracted the wooden plug sending the water shooting down along the drain and down the drainpipe alerting Roberts the butler that the Squire was ready to dress.
Trelawney was waiting in his trousers and shirt as Roberts knocked the door.
"Come in, help with this waistcoat would you." Trelawney asked almost pleadingly.
"You lost more weight sire, you looks like some twenty year old farm hand sir, you needs fattening up!"
"Tis what I thought." Trelawney admitted, "Can we make it fit?"
"Oh dear no sir, there is but an half hour, unless." he paused.
"What you bloody fool, spit it out man."
"You stuffs a pillow up your shirt." Roberts smirked.
"Yes, Capital," Trelawney sighed with sarcasm, Fetch one."
Roberts' mouth gaped as his jaw dropped. "it was said in jest sir."
"Well I am serious." Trelawney insisted.
Roberts collected a cushion from Trelawney's study next to the Bath-room and Trelawney stuffed it beneath his shirt, the waist coat now filled proudly as it it restrained the squires bulging belly and he admired his reflection, perhaps his thin face spoiled the illusion, and perhaps the contrast between fat ugly squire and lusty farm lads were not so clear cut as it may be, but he felt he had done his utmost.
He pulled on his scarlet coat with silk lining and moleskin trim, and stood before the mirror once more, practising his waddling gait, why could he never put on weight like his friends, he pondered, then he remembered the missed lunches and dinners as he struggled with the estate finances, each year fifty guineas and more had to be found from his mines and mills to support the estate, where the deficit arose he could never fathom, and the worry ate away at his soul, how he wished his son John would come home and run the estate instead of playing soldiers, so he might escape to the high life of Plymouth or Penzance or distant Newton Abbott.
Celia knocked tentatively on the big front door, she waited but a few moments before Roberts invited her in, "How does it feel to come in that way miss."
"Strange sir." she replied, oblivious to Robert's amusement at being called "Sir"
"Its a once in a lifetime moment Miss," Roberts insisted, "Savour it, the one moment in time when you live like a lady, dine with the squire, see life through their eyes and forever after know your place."
Roberts smiled at her and her innocent smile troubled him.
"Have you been with a man?" he asked.
Well she was with a man until the cart broke, what a silly question she thought, "Why yes sir many times."
"Oh the squire will be relieved," he said with conviction, "Now lets get those rags off your feet and the squire will be down shortly," he ordered, and then added, "Pray sit a while in the Library, look at a book if you wish, many have pictures in them."
Celia removed the bindings holding the rags to her feet and tossed them into the corner and went to the library, her heart leapt, books stacked from floor to ceiling, never had she seen such things, and the works of William Shakespeare, she pulled a volume down.
"Once more unto the beach dear friends once more" she intoned, as she sought that famous passage.
"Stupid girl, its breach, the hole in the ramparts." Trelawney corrected her in irritation. "You make it sound as if he wrote of pirates."
"Sorry sir." Celia apologised.
"You will not impress by pretending you can read." Trelawney explained.
"But I can sir, a little anyway." she insisted
"Don't lie girl." he warned
"I don't lie sir." she looked at the ground, heedful of her fathers advice she had so singularly failed to follow.
"I suppose you do mathematics and calculous and conduct scientific experiments down on the farm in addition to your excursions into literature." he taunted sarcastically.
"No sir, but I do the accounts for my father sometimes." she admitted.
Trelawney sensed the truth in her answers, but something jarred as incorrect, he regretted scolding the child.
He looked at her, her jawline was very fine, the nose petite, the auburn hair disappointingly dark, the eyes green not blue, no match for his beloved Rose whose blonde hair cascaded almost to her waist, and whose blue eyes shone, but this girl was not un hansom, she stood very straight, her small breasts yet to drag her into stooping round shouldered-ness that would surely come with motherhood, and her robes still glistened in pristine virginal white, a careful, conscientious girl he mused
"Come," He said, "tradition requires I take your arm and escort you to the dining room for our dinner, do you like Quails eggs?" He asked.
She looked horrified. "I like hens eggs sir, I don't think I like Quail, they're a bit small sir surely?"
"Neither do I like Quails egg, so it will be soup, followed by beef, then some salmon and then a sweet." he suggested.
He felt her flinch as he took her arm and guided her to the table he pulled the chair out for her as if she were a lady and pushed it back in and she sat decorously, almost ladylike, he imagined her for a moment as daughter in law, the thought pleased him, housekeeper and bedmate for his son.
The thought faded as quickly as it came, the lads were already assembling in the barn soon she would be far beyond redemption, covered with the semen of all the young blades from the estate, all the unattached, and it would be for her to choose whom of those who used her she should take for a husband.
