Jaen

by Betty Burton

  She rocks Vinnie. She cannot imagine an equivalent violation. Not even to satiate her longing.

  But there are things that she can imagine herself doing, like taking Vinnie's child and . . . then what? She sees herself sitting in a safe cave, rocking the baby as she watches the sea lapping smooth round stones embedded in flat sand.

  If no one else understands, Annie knows why Vinnie was so fierce with Nance who had called the baby 'it'. Vinnie's claim — He's mine! Knows why Vinnie held the unfair, encephalitic head with the same gentleness as she had held the wholesome little penis. He's mine! He is Norry, the baby that knocked Vinnie's ribs and disturbed Vinnie's nights, Norry whose movements were felt by Jaen months ago and compared to Hanna's.

  Annie does not know the details but she understands why, and rocks and waits for Vinnie to assimilate the reality of Peter Norris Hazelhurst.

  16

  Following the revelation of the child that Vinnie had birthen, something settled its unquiet self, as it seemed, on the roof, where it squatted, voiding frustration, rage, gloom and fear which seeped into the fabric of the house, infecting them all except Vinnie and her child.

  Nance had gone down and told Peter that he had got to stop Vinnie trying to suckle the child. Peter, without even a hat or jacket, banged off out into the dripping October weather. Dan was brooding and silent, then he too went off to wherever it was he always went when he was in his black moods. France flew at his mother, saying if she wanted to put the child down then why not do it honest, like kittens and pups, in a sack.

  Baxter, thwarted again by the rag-tag-and-bobtail bits of women his sons got themselves mixed up with, struck France across the mouth and unbuckled his belt as he had done so very often since the first time — when the four-year-old twins Luke and France had set fire to a pile of furze ready for the house.

  Now, France too unbuckled.

  'You do, and you'll get the same!'

  Baxter wound the leather about his fist but made no further move.

  'You do. I warn you. You been whipping the hide off us for more'n twenty year and you an't going to give yourself that pleasure no more. I'm bigger, younger and a lot stronger, and I don't know why one of us an't stood up to you before.'

  As with Nance earlier in the day when Vinnie had made her stand, the master of Up Teg saw the first intimation that his authority was not almighty. And he felt afraid. If he was not master then what was he? He hurled a pitcher of cider into the hearth as a gesture, then he too glowered off into the dark yard.

  Young Ed watched. He saw the first crack appear in the pedestal that had always supported his father. Awe of him began to slide from his shoulders like an unfastened cloak, leaving him unconsciously aware that he could not go on relying upon him.

  Nance, picking bits of broken pot from the debris of the fire, said, 'He won't forgive you, France. A man's got to be master in his own home.'

  'Goddamn it all, Mother! Not with a strap in his hand, nor not master of a man who's full-grown.' France looked down at his own white knuckles. His hands still clutched belt and buckle aggressively. He relaxed and refastened his belt. 'I had no reason to turn on you . . . it didn't mean nothing.'

  'It didn't mean nothing' was about as close to an apology or an admission of being wrong as a Hazelhurst could go. It was what he said to Annie whenever he laid hands on her for crossing him. Once she had shouted back at him, 'It means summit to me,' and he too had said, 'A man's got to be master in his own home.' The question 'Why?' had risen for a moment, but was soon submerged and lay there fermenting, adding to Annie's resentment.

  Annie, who had watched the scene through the scullery door, was glad that France had stood up to his Father yet sorry that he had resorted to the same old solution. She hated to see men in that stance, like bulls or stags — except that in nature creatures were never malicious or rancorous in defeat.

  It had happened too in her own family. There, her father's fits of fury stemmed not so much from being unquestioned master, as from the suspicion that her mother, then later as they grew up herself and her sisters, looked at men whom they should not in ways that they should not — the words sin and women were often synonymous to him.

  Then a day had come when her father gave vent to his ire on a young travelling butcher and there had been a similar clashing of antlers as that she had just witnessed. Although it was ten years ago, Annie still felt the mix of fear and hysterical laughter rise in her whenever she remembered her father stumbling about the yard dripping blood. Most of it had been the pig's, though he did lose the sight of one eye. It did not stop his suspicion and possessiveness, though he did thereafter confine his outbursts to the source of his torment — the women of his household.

  Myrtle and Kath, being the household scapegoats as well as its drudges, suffered more than usual during those weeks. In the night-time privacy of their cold isolation over the dairy, they agreed that it was just like They to make such a fuss about one of Theirn having summit wrong.

  'Anybody'd think it was the end of the world to get a babe with water on the brain. And It can't last long anyhow. They never do.'

  'Well 'tis in a way like the end of the world for the Master, the way he's always on about They being better'n ordinary folks and that.'

  'And coming right after Luke's boy going sudden like he did, with nothing but a simple fever.'

  'I don't know what they a say if Master Richard's last one snuffs out. Did you see him?'

  'Ah. Mistress been telling Missis Richard to feed him pounded raw liver to thicken up his blood. But if you asks me, he still looks unnatural, that bluey sort of white.'

  And so he was. That baby that had only been pink and fat when he was christened and named Nicholas only a few months earlier, and had been admired for being a cherub at Vinnie's wedding, was slowly becoming a fragile, chilled-looking, pinched child.

  17

  WINTER

  The stream of ill-luck flowed down upon Up Teg right up till Christmas.

  Ed, youngest of The Boys, whose Hazelhurst heighth and breadth at puberty was equal to most full-grown men — and superior to most of the ill-nourished bow-legged and stunted men who worked the land — proud of his growing strength, was given to pushing and pulling excessively. A few days before Christmas, when axeing out roots for new drains, he all but severed the finger and thumb of his left hand.

  Strange as it may seem, Ed's accident was the one bright spot for Master Baxter in those dark weeks. Before the flaming log on the ale-house hearth he can boast,

  '. . . near cut right through, if I don't rise from this seat again, and he walks in holding them together — two miles he must a walked like that — and asks Kath for summit to bind 'em back on.' He drinks deeply to let the drama of his son's courage sink in. The other drinkers do admire Ed's manliness, but they would do so with greater generosity if Master Baxter did not always tell tales in a way that set his sons higher than those of his neighbours. Especially when Baxter himself seemed to be going down hill of late.

  One bit of ill-luck following another.

  It was the worst time of the year, the days were at their shortest. The dark time when people who still lived much as their peasant forebears had done, sat by the light of tapers and wicks, the women spinning, knitting and sewing, the men whittling tool-handles and doing small work. The dark time when the old people tell rhyming rules and knowledge, hand on family history and ancient stories into the keeping of the next generation.

  Thirty days hath September,

  April, June and November . . .

  The mistletoe hung on the castle wall,

  The holly-branch hung in the old oak hall . . .

  Oh, the mistletoe bough,

  O-oh, the mistle . . . toe bough.

  Now, they often sit gloomy and silent in the Up Teg kitchen: Baxter, Nance, Dan and Jaen, Peter and Vinnie, the hired labour and servants sharing the same warmth — though on many evenings it is only the Up Teg women who are there; the log in the heart
h of the 'Bear' warms the older men, and Nell Gritt's pathetic mattress in her mouldering shelter has more appeal than some of the flock-stuffed ones at Up Teg.

  Although it was weeks since Vinnie came downstairs from her childbed she still made excuses whenever Nance tried to get her to go and be 'churched', chiding her that until it was done Vinnie was not 'Clean and fit to meet thy Maker.'

  'I a go — but not just yet.'

  Jaen sensed that Vinnie was waiting for something.

  Because the baby Norry could not suck, Vinnie's milk did not come. Nance behaved as though the child did not exist but, once given, the knowledge that she has passed down to her son's wives could not be taken back. So, without her help or approval, Annie did what she had seen the old woman do when she had got Lucy and Rachael going. Goat-milk at first trickled down a finger, then a greater flow with a leaky but effective teat of her own devising — Nance Hazelhurst had a well-placed faith in the milk of ewes and goats for any digestion that was not robust.

  So, with that knowledge, and with Jaen expressing some of her milk directly into the child's mouth, he survived — he did not thrive, but he did survive.

  Nance, whose word was law when it came to do with women's business, felt that the act of defiance when Vinnie had said 'He's mine!' was swelling into rebellion.

  Annie, Jaen and Vinnie were always fussing with It, but what could she do against their combined wills? They never neglected their work; the men were fed on time.

  When she had started on to Baxter about it, he had turned upon her. 'What do you expect me to do — tell them to put it out on the hillside like they used to in olden times?' The child was like a thorn that could not be plucked out because it could not be found — it was a constant bother to her yet there seemed nothing that she could do. Of all the decent, normal children that had been taken — her little Alice, young Laurie and . . . and it seemed likely, Richard's latest — this one was holding on.

  One morning in the week running up to Christmas, Vinnie went off on her own and came back saying that she had been down and got herself churched.

  'Well, that's good, Vin,' Peter said. 'We shall be able to go to the Christmas service together.'

  Ever since the day when the child had been born and Peter had gone off out into the night, nobody knew where, he had said nothing except what was necessary for work or food. Vinnie seemed not to notice, or if she did, was not affected by it. As far as anyone knew, he had never looked at his son.

  The effect that the malformed had upon the family was strange, particularly upon Jaen.

  Hanna was now getting on for four months old. She was a healthy, solid baby with the striking colouring of Jaen — green-blue eyes, pale skin and hair that would grow to be the same red-gold as her Estover ancestors. But she was querulous and grizzly, it was difficult to know why; it could scarcely be hunger for she often cried whilst feeding, seeming to want to turn from Jaen even as she tried to feed.

  Jaen would often have to steel herself before she could pick Hanna up. At first Nance had pushed and pulled Jaen into a more natural position, but in the end she gave up.

  Exasperated, she said to no one in particular, 'I don't know why she can't get a hold properly, anybody'd think she was having to give suck to a wolf.'

  Jaen was left to her own devices with Hanna, and to her own continuing loneliness and misery and her belief that there was something wrong with her. She was cold to her husband and she had no instinct to mother her baby. The unnaturalness of her feelings made her afraid and ashamed. She tried constantly to affect warmth and smiles for Dan and pats for Hanna. To outward appearance she had settled down as a Hazelhurst wife. She worked very well, and Baxter had stopped singling her out for criticism.

  Her rejection of Hanna was all the more difficult for her to understand when she found herself cradling Vinnie's child and trying to wet-nurse him. She would let Hanna start feeding, and as soon as the milk flowed well, Vinnie or Annie, sometimes both, would try to get the second child to take. Compared to the rigid and writhing Hanna, Norry was soft and pliable, and Jaen sometimes put Hanna back in the rush-basket and cradled the new baby.

  On the day that Vinnie was churched, she and Jaen had been doing their regular dairy chores of scouring and scalding. It was rough, hard work, especially in winter when the walls were so cold that the steam froze on contact and the feet of the women became numb and their hands chapped and raw. Jaen and Vinnie had never minded the work half so much when they shared it.

  'Remember when I felt Norry quicken?'

  Before Jaen can answer, Vinnie goes on. 'I a have to let him go.'

  Jaen nods. It is becoming more and more of a struggle to get any milk into him.

  'It ain't just water on the brain, there's other things wrong, an't there Jaen?'

  'He got more than his fair share of trouble.'

  'He an't never going to be able to take food proper.'

  Jaen guesses that Vinnie too has felt about the small mouth whilst trying to get him to suck from a finger, has discovered the unfinished palette and the oddly shaped jaw.

  The thing that Jaen finds so difficult, to touch another person spontaneously, has always been easy with Vinnie. She dries her hands on her sacking apron and puts an arm about Vinnie's shoulder and draws her down so that they sit side by side on a draining bench.

  'It wasn't wrong to try. It wasn't wrong. He's mine and Peter's son — she didn't think of him like that. She would have just throwed him away if she could. Just because somebody got summit wrong, don't mean you have to throw them away. I seen her looking at me and him, she thinks I'm like a cow with a dead calf.'

  Jaen says, 'She don't think very deep.'

  'She don't feel very deep neither.'

  Jaen ventures her first explicit criticism of the family she now belongs to. 'Perhaps we won't when we've lived with Dan and Peter as long as she's lived with their father.'

  Vinnie, who has been looking inwardly, looks sideways at Jaen. 'Pete a be all right.'

  Jaen thinks that there is an implied criticism of Dan because she doesn't include him in her comment, but it is Vinnie being honest, and Jaen believes that Vinnie is probably right. Once they are living on their own, Vin and Peter will be all right. Like France, he seems a different man when the other Boys are not there.

  'So, I'm going down to St John's this morning, and get churched.'

  Jaen did not follow Vinnie's train of thought.

  'If you a just let Hanna feed till you'm dry. I an't going to make no to-do about it, none of your milk and none from the nanny-goat neither, well, only enough so as it looks like it's milk. I shall tell Annie.'

  'What shall you tell her?'

  'Only that . . . It wasn't true that my mother knew witchcraft, but she knew things and she learnt me a lot. I know how to do it so as he a go gentle, like going asleep. I shall tell Annie to feel in his mouth — if she an't already felt it. You felt it?'

  Jaen nods.

  'It an't a sin, Jaen. I an't just throwing him away like she wanted, before anybody tried to see if he was all right. I heard France shouting at her the night I had Norry — you know how the voices comes up through that floor. About thinking she was God or summit. I reckon that sometimes you have to, but you can't just do it like when you makes a mistake and burns the bread . . . you can't say, "Oh Lor that's spoilt throw'n to the pigs," can you? You haves to see if summit can be done.' She smiles at Jaen. 'I don't half talk, don't I? Once I gets started.'

  'What about Peter?'

  'I shan't say nothing to him. Not even when it's over. We a just start all over again.'

  She held Jaen's hand for a moment, then hastily kissed it. 'Your Ju's lucky to have a sister like you. Come on, let's get this done so as I can go down to St John's and catch Vicar at Morning Service — won't be nobody hardly there today.'

  Later, when they were going their separate ways, Vinnie said, 'I got to admit, it wasn't only just for Norry's sake. I wanted a little bit of time with him. You kno
w what I mean?'

  Jaen did not, but she nodded her agreement.

  'It a be easier now. I got something to remember about my baby — not like Annie.'

  PETER NORRIS HAZELHURST

  FIRST SON OF PETER AND LAVINIA HAZELHURST

  DIED DECEMBER 23RD 1780 AGE NINE WEEKS.

  NICHOLAS HAZELHURST

  FIRST SON OF RICHARD AND ELIZABETH HAZELHURST

  DIED FEBRUARY I781 AGE NINE MONTHS.

  18

  When May comes rolling over the downland, from the west, for those whose limbs are able to take them to the top of the downs, who have leisure enough to spend time wandering and whose pleasure in wild flowers is discriminating, inclining towards the delicacy of harebells and tenaciousness of vetchlings and rest-harrows, rather than to exaggerated hollyhocks and sunflowers, or overwhelming rhododendrons — there is no place on earth equal to Hampshire to touch the senses.

  Skies are boisterous with white cloud. The new grass has come, and hemlock and hellebore, willow-herb and tansy, eyebright, and yellow rattle, moneywort, lousewort, speedwell and bearded-bellflower are regenerating.

  The vanilla scent of hawthorn hangs about lanes, lark-song spins up into the lively air, and leaf-mould rustles with the long chain of hunters hunting and the hunted being hunted — most of them living and dying both roles. Even whilst only fifty miles north of the county border there is still heavy fog and frost, in the Four Parishes of Rathley, Motte, Cantle and Blackbrook, if one were to climb to the highest point, one could see summer approaching Devon and Cornwall on its way to Hampshire.

  Down the ages clergymen with Hampshire parishes, safe from need and with much leisure, have discovered and documented that which people with calloused hands, soil on their boots and toil in their bones, have always known.