The Caxley Chronicles Read Online Free PDF

early! Of course, thought Bertie reasonably, they were much older than he was; Jim was twelve, and Leslie was ten. His particular friend, Kathy, who was only seven, had to go to bed when her little brother did, just as he did. This crumb of cold comfort went a small way towards consoling the boy gazing down at the enviable freedom of the older children.
    The bell stopped ringing, and the everyday noises could be heard once more. The clop of the horses' great shaggy hooves,
as they moved across the cobblestones of the market square, mingled with the screaming of swifts round the spire of St Peter's. Behind him, in one of the back bedrooms looking across the river Cax, he could hear Vera singing to herself as she darned socks.
    There were four little bedrooms at the top of the tall old house. Bertie and Winnie had one each overlooking the square. Vera had another, and the fourth was known as 'the boxroom' and was filled with the most fascinating objects, from a dressmaker's model, with a formidable bust covered in red sateen and a wire skirt, to a dusty pile of framed portraits of North ancestors complete with cravats, pomaded locks and beards.
    These old be-whiskered faces intrigued young Bertie. He liked to think that he belonged to the same family; that they too had once been his age, had run across the market square with their iron hoops as he did, and floated their toy boats on the placid face of the river Cax. His father and mother had been patient in answering his questions, and he already had an idea of his respectable background. Brought up in a community which recognised the clear divisions of class, Bertie knew the Norths' place in the scale and was happy to be there.
    The Norths were middle class. They were respected tradespeople, church-goers and, best of all, comfortably off. Bertie was glad he was not in the class above his—the gentry. Their children were sent away to school or had stern governesses. Their fathers and mothers seemed to be away from home a great deal. It would not have suited Bertie. Sometimes a passing pang of envy shot through him when he saw his betters on ponies of their own, for Bertie loved horses dearly. But there was always the sturdy little cob that pulled Uncle
Ted's trap in the High Street, and on this the boy lavished his affection.
    He was even more thankful that he did not belong to the class below, the poor. The people who lived in the low-lying area of Caxley, called 'The Marsh', were objects of pity and a certain measure of fear. Respectable children were not allowed to roam those dark narrow streets alone. On winter nights, the hissing gas lamp on the corner of the lane leading from the High Street to the marsh, simply accentuated the sinister murk of the labyrinth of alleys and small courtyards which were huddled, higgledy-piggledy, behind the gracious façade of the Georgian shop fronts.
    Other people—far too many of them for Bertie's tender heart—were also poor. He saw them in his father's shop, thin, timid, unpleasantly smelly, rooting in their pockets or worn purses for the pence to pay for two screws, a cheap pudding basin, or a little kettle. They were pathetically anxious not to give any trouble.
    'Don't 'ee bother to wrap it, sir,' they said to Bender deferentially.
    'It don't matter if it's a mite rusty,' said another one day. ''Twill be good enough for I.'
    It seemed strange to the listening boy, his head not far above the counter, that the poor whose money was so precious, should be content to accept shoddy goods, whereas those with plenty of money should make such a terrible fuss if there were the slightest fault in their purchases.
    'What the hell d'you mean, North, by sending up this rubbish?' old Colonel Enderby had roared, flinging a pair of heavy gate hinges on to the counter, with such force that they
skidded across, and would have crashed into young Bertie's chin if he had not ducked smartly. 'They're scratched!'
    His father's politeness, in