A Country Marriage (37 page)

Her mother had also stitched a ribbon and shown her how to tie it high up on the back of her head and then twist the ends of her hair to pin underneath. For several days, she had been practising, secretly, in the hope of achieving the desired result but now, as she pushed the last of her pins into place, all she could do was hope that it looked all right.

Taking care to avoid snagging her skirt on the ladder, she made her way carefully down from the loft, noticing as she neared the bottom that George was leaping up from his chair to help her. Once safely on the floor, she turned around and aware that her smile was a shy one, was reminded of how it had felt when they had been courting and she had been anxious for him to like her. This time, though, she needn’t have worried; the sight of his face alone, worth the effort. Her plan had worked.

‘Who
is
this woman?’ he asked, keeping hold of her hand. There was something about his look that she hadn’t seen before – wonder? Delight?
Desire
?

‘Do you like it, then?’

‘
Like
it
?’ he asked, the sight of his expression enough to make her giggle. ‘I’m lost for the words for it, Mary. I never seen you look more…
lovely
…’

‘Pity about me old boots,’ she said, lifting the hemline of her skirt and twirling in a circle, ‘but at least no one will see ʼem.’

But when she looked back at him, he still seemed to be struggling for something to say.

‘I don’t know what it is… maybe your hair like that, but you look older – or maybe it’s the colour of the cloth that makes your eyes look all sparkly and well, that blouse is very comely, too…’

‘So I look fair, then, all said and done,’ she ventured to suggest.

‘Fair? You look astonishing,’ he said and then, appearing somewhat confused, offered her his arm to escort her out.

Earlier that morning, dawn had broken to reveal fingers of ice on the inside of the windows, and a sharp frost encrusting the fields; and now, as they arrived at the farmhouse, with the low sunlight filtering through the branches of the oak at the gate to cast long shadows across the yard, she shivered, and as George came around to help her down from the cart, she suddenly wondered whether perhaps she was overdressed; something that hadn’t occurred to her until now. The last thing she wanted to be considered was showy, but with George holding Jacob and with no time to dwell on the thought, she found herself being led across to the kitchen and straight into the path of Hannah emerging from the scullery.

‘Oh my! Look at you two!’ she exclaimed but Mary’s eyes had already been caught by Annie standing across the room, her face changing from a wide-eyed look of disbelief into a brief and rather insincere smile. ‘Lovely, my dear, most lovely,’ Hannah said, kissing her warmly and adding in an aside to George that was far too loud to ever have been intended as a whisper, ‘the perfect family, son, eh?’

But while she was still frowning Ellen had come to run her hand over her skirt and sigh.

‘Oh how I wish I could wear such a strong colour,’ she was saying, ‘it suits you just perfect and—’

Her elegant compliment was cut short, though, by her father-in-law arriving to offer his rather more robust verdict: ‘Well you’re a rousing sight, young lady and not a word of a lie!’

Although the kitchen filled with laughter, she was close enough to the doorway to unexpectedly catch a voice behind her, lowered to a whisper and apparently reinforcing her father-in-law’s view.

‘A rousin’ sight indeed.’ With a frown, she turned abruptly about, entirely unprepared to find herself eye to eye with Francis Troke. And in the split of a second that followed, she glimpsed his lips curling with delight, noticed his brows arching mischievously above appreciative eyes and was shocked by his nerve as, in blatant disregard for their circumstances, right there on the edge of the family gathering, he winked at her. Biting her lip to contain a gasp, she looked hastily down, certain that her eyes would betray the shameful feeling the intimacy of his gesture had triggered. ‘Well, I’m done with the cows, Mas’ Strong, so I’ll be off home now then,’ he called above Mary’s head, and although by the time George had turned around, Francis’ face was the picture of innocence, she felt uncomfortably flushed and entirely unable to banish the thought of what had just passed between them.

*

‘Lord, ’tis always the same after such a meal,’ Hannah opined, wielding a long knife to scrape the debris from a serving dish into the slops pail.

‘The clearing up?’ Ellen asked from her position at the sink, where she was up to her elbows in steaming water.

‘Aye and there seems to be more of it with each and every year,’ her mother-in-law replied with a laugh. ‘Tell you what, Mary love, since we’re all gettin’ in each other’s way here, how about you pop along and fetch me the tablecloths? They’ll be straight in the wash tub tomorrow morning so don’t werret yourself about creasing them.’

Nodding her understanding, she went briskly along the chill hallway to retrieve the linens from the dining table, but at the sound of the men’s voices, she paused with her hand on the doorknob, uncertain whether to interrupt.

‘Well, a good many of
them
won’t be dining with their families today,’ she heard Will’s voice remarking. ‘No goose in the Bridewell.’

‘Aye. Not that most of ’em would have had food to put on their tables anyways,’ her husband’s voice was answering him.

‘But from what
I
been hearing, it ain’t the
real
destitute men that’s been taking part in these riots…’

‘Protests,’ her husband corrected him.

‘…that’s been taking part in these
protests
, anyway. ’Tis men with proper employment and learning, or so I hear.’

‘Who among us
ain’t
destitute, as you so politely put it?’ To her ears, George’s voice sounded particularly short, especially for a conversation with his brothers. ‘Eh? Answer me that. Still, it’s different for the pair of you, here, with all this. And in comparison to some people, even
I’m
fortunate, since I’ve just about wage enough to provide what we need. But what if me and Mary already had five or six children? Or more? And what if they were sick? Or what if I couldn’t dig ditches ten hours a day come rain or shine to bring in this
pittance
of a wage? What then? Eh?’

She listened intently, wishing she could hear more clearly what they were talking about. Trying to calm her breathing, since the act of eavesdropping was causing her heart to race, she glanced guiltily over her shoulder, back towards the kitchen. Sounds of plates being stacked and the low murmur of the women’s voices was continuing regardless; not that it really mattered because she knew she couldn’t stand here for much longer before Hannah would wonder where she was and open the door to peer along the dark hall. For a moment, she considered what to do for the best – interrupt their discussion or not – and then decided that to dither over such a simple errand was ridiculous. And so, fixing a light smile and before she had the chance to change her mind, she grasped the doorknob – clammy now under her chilled palm – edged open the door and peered, blinking, into the room. Only slowly did the three of them look in her direction. Her eyes fell first on Will, sprawled backwards in the same chair that he’d occupied at dinner. Next to him was Robert, slumped forward onto the table. And, seated in his father’s chair, George was leaning towards them, his eyes animated and his finger pointing as though reinforcing his view.

‘Forgive me intruding,’ she ventured to say despite their staring, ‘but Ma Strong wants the linens.’

‘Aye,’ George beckoned her into the room. ‘Do what you will.’

For a while, then, none of them spoke, the only sounds in the room coming from the slow popping of logs in the dying fire and the flap of the linens as she folded them ready for laundering, but as Robert raised his head and sat back to allow her to remove the final cloth, she saw him look across at George and ask, ‘So this unrest, could it spread here, to this part of Hampshire then? Could there be trouble for Pa? For the farm?’

It was a split second before Mary could get her hands to work again; trouble for the farm? She turned her back in the pretence of affording the men some privacy, but it was a good while before George answered, and only then after he saw that she was heading for the door.

‘Well,
my
opinion and
only
my opinion, mind, is that trouble will spread everywhere sooner or later. Maybe not for a while, since we’re near the end of the doling now and when the New Year brings work again, folk might not be as desperate as they are when the harvest ends. But as for Summerleas, well, that’s different; ignoring Francis for a moment, Pa don’t pay no one’s wages, so there could be no complaint on that score. And with so little grain, he don’t hire day labour for the threshing nor does he own a threshing machine.’

From the hall, she pulled the door gently to and then hovered uncertainly.

‘Tom was always on at him about gettin’ one, though; he thought we should have taken the chance to reduce the workload,’ she heard Robert say.

‘And what would
Tom
have known about workload? Aye, if it had been down to
him
, you can be sure there’d have been one here ages ago,’ George’s observation was delivered in a scathing tone. ‘But as far as I see it, Robert, if tithes were fairer, Summerleas could only gain and that being the case so would the rest of us.’

At this, there sounded to be a lull in the conversation, and in the notion that the gathering might be about to break up, she stole on tiptoes back over the freezing flagstones to join the women in their gossip and the comparative warmth of the kitchen.

*

In the days after Christmas, the gloomy weather provided Mary with plenty of opportunity to reflect on what she had discovered both about her husband’s views and about recent events across the county. Had she been asked, though, she would have found it difficult to express her feelings on either. On the one hand, she was terrified by the notion that unrest was seemingly threatening the peaceful lives of very ordinary families. Having people rampage about the countryside smashing things that they saw as the cause of their desperation was unsettling. And along with that, she was similarly terrified that George should get swept up with such a thing. And yet, on the other hand, people should be able to feed and clothe their families; something that she knew even in these favoured parts was not always the case. And knowing that George felt so strongly about such a God-given right made her feel surprisingly warm towards him.

With the arrival of January, though, Mary’s mind dwelt less on the part George might play in any coming unrest, and instead became fully occupied with the need to finish preparing the vegetable plot in readiness for her first sowings. Briefly, the weather was even dry enough to permit the start of ploughing in Alder Field, and with the success of the first furrows being considered auspicious for the crop ahead, Will climbed into the rafters of the barn to cut down the corn doll from the previous harvest so that it could be carried to the site of the first ploughing. This year, with Lottie being the youngest maiden on the farm, the honour fell to her and, walking sedately down the lane with the other women, Mary watched her clutching it protectively to her chest. Then, when Thomas had ploughed a couple of yards of the first furrow, she dropped it into the shallow cleft in the moist ground. After that, they all stood watching until, eventually, Thomas made his way back up the incline, and as the soil from the second furrow turned over the first, the spirit of the harvest that had been residing in the corn doll was deemed safely returned to the earth. With the first two furrows complete, Thomas handed the plough to Will, and the assembled family members started to drift away.

‘This is when he’ll miss Tom the most,’ Hannah remarked quietly to Ellen, who turned to look back at her father-in-law staring down the furrow after Will and the plough.

‘Aye,’ she replied, non-committally.

‘The first time Tom took over the plough he was just twelve years old an’ Thomas said then that no boy of his age could strike a truer furrow. Don’t get me wrong; Will’s a good ploughman, one of the best hereabouts, but you know how farming is and with Will not being the eldest son, it ain’t quite the same.’ At her side, Ellen heaved a vexed sigh but bit her tongue. ‘With Tom gone, it’ll fall now to Thomas to teach young James, but I know he feels deeply that the unbroken line of father-to-son is gone now forever.’

‘But
he
didn’t break it,’ Ellen pointed out.

‘Maybe not, but the farm was in his custody when it happened and so as far as he’s concerned, he might as well have.’ In silence, the women watched Will guiding the plough a moment longer before Hannah said, ‘Well, come on then, that’s their work. Let’s go an’ get on with ours; there’s enough of it.’

‘And I’ve work to be getting back to as well,’ Mary agreed, and rather pointlessly lifting the bottom of her already damp-ringed skirt above the tussocks of wet grass, looked back up to find Francis Troke holding the gate open for her.

Chapter 14

Repercussions

‘Well that was quick,’ Ellen remarked as she brought cups of tea to the table. ‘Want some, George? Or something stronger, if you like?’

From the corner of the kitchen George shook his head, wishing that she hadn’t drawn attention to his presence. He felt conspicuous enough as it was, without all of them looking at him.

‘Aye, it was so quick I missed it!’ he heard Mary saying with one of her light laughs. ‘I’ve been that busy up home lately I’d quite lost sight of the fact that her baby was due, and then when Robert came running in to tell us that it was coming, I thought there’d still be plenty of time. So I was shocked twice over to get here and find it all done with.’

He turned away from the women’s incessant chatter to look through the window into the darkening yard. How on earth had his presence – the only male among their number – not aroused suspicion? When Robert had run up to tell them that Annie was in labour, it had taken a while for him to make sense of what it meant; that his child was about to be born. But then when Mary had been in no hurry to leave, it had been as much as he could do not to race down to the farmhouse without her.

‘Aye, I recall her James coming out without a fuss, but this one was even easier,’ he heard Martha commenting.
At least she’d had an easy time of it, then
, he thought, picking at the few, remaining flakes of paint in the corner of the window frame.

‘I’d given up all hope of her having another,’ he heard his mother saying matter-of-factly, an idle enough remark that brought to mind an uncomfortable muddle of Annie’s comments about Tom and his behaviour. ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather that day she told us she was expecting again. Course, maybe if Tom had known…’

He pressed his eyes closed and drove his thumbnail as far as it would go into a fissure in the sun-bleached timber.

‘Aye, five years is quite a gap at her age,’ Martha was chipping in and he sensed it was an attempt to distract his mother from another endless and ultimately pointless round of ifs and buts.

‘I think I’ll go back up home then,’ he suddenly blurted, his announcement instantly halting their conversation and turning them all in his direction.

‘No, hang on a mo’,’ he was startled to hear Mary respond. ‘I almost forgot; Annie asked if you’d do summat for her.’ He knew that he should affect surprise and ask what she wanted but his pulse was racing so rapidly that he wasn’t even sure he could breathe, let alone phrase a sensible question. Instead, he raised his eyes just enough to meet those of his wife. ‘She wondered if you’d go an’ see if James is awake and tell him he’s got a brother.’

He was fairly certain that, at the periphery of his vision, his mother’s head had jerked in his direction.

‘Um…?’

‘She says James likes you.’

‘Well, I suppose if that’s what she wants…’

‘It’s what she asked. So would you? Only I’m sure she’ll understand if you don’t want to. One of us can always go and—’

‘No, no. I’ll go and talk to him for her.’

‘Bring him down to see them, son,’ he heard Martha adding and with a jolt, realised that she had just presented him with the most unlikely of opportunities. ‘No doubt she’d like that.’

‘If you’re sure,’ he replied as casually as he could.

‘Aye; make yourself useful for a bit while I drink my tea,’ Mary suggested with a grin, at which point he knew better than to continue to appear reluctant. Too much of a fuss and the chance might be gone.

‘The mite’s a fair old size again,’ he heard Martha reflecting, as in his relief he almost scuttled away from their scrutiny.

‘Aye, and from the little I saw of him, so like the Strongs, too,’ was the reply he heard his wife offer as he took the stairs two at a time.

*

When George closed the door behind him, he found Annie sitting up in bed cradling the baby. In an attempt to find his voice, he swallowed, but when she looked up her smile was so full of warmth that, even had his mouth been working, he would still have been stuck for something to say.

‘There’s your new brother,’ he finally bent to whisper in James’ ear.

‘Ugh! He’s all pink!’

With his hands on James’ shoulders, he guided him forward.

‘You were the same,’ his mother told him.

‘I never were!’

Pressing his lips together, George tried to suppress a smile.

‘Yes you were; you were just like this.’

‘What’s ʼis name, then?’ James wanted to know.

‘His name is George Luke,’ she announced, ‘but we’re going to call him Luke since there’s already a George in the family.’

George
? Did the woman
want
them to be found out? Beneath his hands, he felt James give a shrug, his fascination with the inert bundle apparently already waning and then letting him pull away, watched him turn his attention to the fireplace instead, where he squatted down to stab at the logs with the poker.

Gently, George lowered himself onto the side of the bed and reached for her free hand, feeling her turn it palm upwards and grasp his fingers.

‘
George
?’ he asked in a disbelieving whisper. ‘Are you serious in your intent to call him
George
? You’ll get me killed, Annie.’

‘Don’t fret; ’tis after my father, apparently.’

‘I thought you told me once that your father was called—’

‘Lucas. I know.’ She smiled. ‘Must have been a bit overcome. You know; didn’t realise what I was saying.’

Why did she always have to court danger? Surely after all this time she had to know that his mother was by nature suspicious. Not that it would do the least good to try to get her to change her mind; clearly, her heart was set on it.

With a shake of his head, he looked back at her. She looked astonishing. Somehow, despite what she had just been through, she had never looked more fresh, more vital; more alive.

‘Annie—’

‘Don’t werret. It’s not as though anyone would ever guess,’ she whispered. ‘How could they?’

‘Mighty dangerous, though. Playing with fire if you ask me—’

‘Here, hold him a while,’ she was suggesting, and suddenly, to his astonishment, he found himself with the infant in his hands.

How could this feel both
so
horribly wrong and yet at the same time, so completely and utterly right?
How
? How could that be? He glanced back at her and then down again at the baby. Was it his imagination, or did he look exactly like James? He’d never taken any notice of James as a baby, but then he’d had no reason to, and in all honesty, up until now he had always thought that all babies looked much alike. One thing was certain though; this baby bore no resemblance whatsoever to Tom, well, not that he would, he reminded himself, suddenly grateful that he had shared his brother’s dark colouring and hadn’t inherited the mousier shade of Will and Robert. But then into his thoughts came a sharp recollection of sitting here with Mary, a lot less than a year ago, holding Jacob and thinking then that his feelings at the birth of his first child would never be matched. It appeared now, though, that he had been wrong; looking down at Annie’s son, he was consumed by precisely the same feelings; something for which he had been entirely unprepared. In truth, he had never stopped to think about what would happen once her baby arrived, or let himself think about how he would feel. In fact, apart from his terror when she had first told him that she was carrying his child, he couldn’t recall ever having thought ahead to the matter of the baby’s arrival at all. Admittedly, as she had grown ever larger, he’d become drawn to her in a way that frightened him all over again and had aroused in him feelings he’d been unable to satisfy in the way he would have liked. But now, well, here they were; his sister-in-law and his son. His
sons
. And, so far, his world hadn’t descended into a fiery hell.

Quickly, he glanced over his shoulder to where James was still crouched by the hearth.

‘Be careful there,’ he said, and looked back to see Annie wiping at the corner of her eye.

‘Thank you so much for him.’

‘As I recall it, I wasn’t given much say in the matter.’

‘No, I remember that, too.’ She laughed and then with an unexpected sob, added, ‘But thank you anyway. He’s the best thing that could have happened to me right now an’ I love him. I love them
both
so much. And thank you for comin’ to see me so much these last weeks. I know I put on a brave face but, well, it means a lot. You know that, don’t you?’

Yes, he did know, although in his heart, he also knew that most of the time he had spent with her had been as much for his own benefit as for hers. With the merest nod, though, he carefully handed the baby back to her, aware that James had begun watching them.

‘Look, I’d best go,’ he said to her. ‘Come here, James. Say goodnight to your ma. ’Tis late.’

Getting up from the floor, James looked briefly in his mother’s direction.

‘Night, Ma.’

‘Goodnight son. Goodnight, George.’

‘Goodnight Annie. Make sure you let them make a fuss of you for a few days, eh?’

‘No need to fret on that score.’

*

To Mary, it seemed hardly any time since the first, brighter days of March had brought the sight of hares loping effortlessly across the meadows but already April was here and with it, sudden showers from azure skies and the first of the cuckoos in Bluebell Wood. But the warmer weather also meant a spurt of soft growth for her young plants and she knew from experience how for every slug and snail in Verneybrook there could be no clearer signal to attack. So, with the onset of dusk each day – and crouching low between the drills with a lantern and a handful of salt – she mounted an attack of her own. It was a tedious task hunting down the enemy in this way – but one that she found curiously rewarding.

‘Three and twenty, tonight,’ she announced, as she walked back up the garden to where she could hear George ferreting about in the woodshed. ‘Not going down the farm, this evening then?’ she asked when he offered no response.

‘You said we need some firewood chopping.’ His answer sounded almost accusatory.

‘Aye, we do,’ she replied warily, ‘but only if you’re not needed elsewhere.’

‘Well either it needs doing or it don’t,’ he said, coming out through the door and bringing down the axe to cleave a stump of ash through the middle. She stood for a moment and watched as he placed another log on the block and then, turning it cut-side up, swung the axe above his head and brought it swiftly down again, one of the two new halves skittling towards her feet. ‘Is there summat else?’ he asked, letting the axe hang limply at his side and looking at her expectantly.

‘No. Nothing,’ she replied and turned away from him, feeling in her stomach the familiar gripping sensation that she knew stemmed from the curtness of their exchange. Whenever he was distant or cross her first thought was to worry that she was at fault. Had she forgotten to do something? Had she done something wrong? Was there anything at which his family could have taken offence? But, as usual, she arrived at the same conclusion: nothing that she could think of. By and large she did exactly what she was supposed to
when
she was supposed to, and tried to remain cheerful while she was at it. Briefly, she wondered whether his gloominess had anything to do with his meetings at The Stag – although in truth there seemed to have been far fewer lately – but there was no way that she could ask him without looking as though she was prying.

Stepping inside, she absently picked up his work boots, placed them next to the door and then, with a glance back to the grim set of his expression, decided that she could only do what she always did; keep quiet and wait for his irritation with her to pass.

*

‘How’s Annie, then?’ Mary ventured a couple of evenings later, as she and George sat eating their supper. ‘She been churched yet? Only, I know how your ma’s summat of a stickler on that point.’

‘How should
I
know?’

There it was: that terseness again. Surely, though, he couldn’t take umbrage at her showing interest in his sister-in-law?

‘Well, I thought that seeing as you went to the farm last evening—’

‘As well you know,’ he started to reply without looking up, ‘she’s lying-in, which means no visitors, so I didn’t see her.’

‘Well, that don’t normally include family, do it?’ It was an observation that she offered cautiously, hoping only to make conversation.

‘In which case, if you’re that bothered, go an’ see her for yourself.’

Good grief, she thought to herself, checking a sigh; he was even more tetchy than usual this evening. And, although recognising that it would be wise not to press the matter, she couldn’t shed the feeling of depression that came from seeing him so apparently weighed down by something.

‘George, are you certain everything’s all right?’

‘Certain,’ he replied, and laying down his fork, pushed aside his largely untouched meal to add, ‘and now, assuming you haven’t a problem with it, I’m goin’ out.’