by Betty Burton
Jaen's best times were always when Bella and Jude visited. It was usually on a Sunday but sometimes they came on a Holy Day as well. They would leave Croud Cantle in the charge of Dicken Bordsell and the boy Johnny-twoey for a few hours. Perhaps a packman or a journeyman or a carter would carry a message beforehand: 'Master over Croud Cantle says, God willing, she a be over on Sunday fortnight hence, if it won't be no hurt to the Master here.'
Although she was pleased to see her mother, it was Ju who caused Jaen to anticipate the visit with so much pleasure. There was usually a moment of hesitation about Hanna, perhaps this time they would not wish to take her back with them. But she senses that they have become so used to Hanna, that they accept her as their own.
Jaen says, 'Hello Child. You'm certainly growing.'
Then Child says, 'Hello Jaen.'
Then, when told to do so, 'Hello Father.'
Dan says, 'Well Child, don't you think they'm fine little fellas?'
Hanna, well-nourished, sturdy and looking more like Jude than Jaen now, nods her red head and looks solemnly at the babies who are her brothers and plays with their fingers. Jaen watches her, trying to feel in herself something alive for The Child. And she does. She finds fear and guilt. What she looks for is that which she believeis is natural for a mother to feel.
An instinct Vinnie would call love.
Why don't I love you, Child? Why will it be like a ton weight off my chest when I sees you going off down the path by Th'ammet and why will it wrench my insides when I sees Ju going off too?
And why don't I love you, Dan'l, like Vinny loves Fancy?
And why don't I love you, little Bax, and you the one that's inside me?
Why can't I just be like anyone else and be pleased?
In the recesses of her mind lurks an unformed thought about Dan being as willing as herself to let The Child stay away year in year out — but, it is a subconscious thought.
She looks away from her children and sees that Ju is watching her closely. She smiles brightly at Ju.
After a visit from Bella and Jude, Jaen would often go for weeks seeming well enough, then Dan would come home of a day to discover that she had been off wandering, leaving the little ones with one of the girls, hardly seeming to know where she had been. Other times she would sit, staring into the fire, then jump when he spoke.
Smiling brightly. 'Lord, I was miles away then, Dan.'
If Dan was bewildered by her moods, so was Jaen herself. It wasn't just her attraction for France — though that did not help — she felt sometimes that she was living in a dark cave or a well. When she saw France it was like someone letting in the light.
She tried to talk to Vinnie.
Smiling brightly. 'I reckon my brains is going soft, Vin. There's times when I don't know whether I'm going or coming. Dan gets that cross. And I don't wonder.'
But stable, practical Vinnie had no experience of what Jaen felt. 'I know. 'Tis just the same with me. I had to make Pete put up a tethering post for Fancy. Once they'm on their feet you got to have eyes in the back of yer head.'
Smiling brightly. 'I shall need some in my elbows soon — I got another one on the way.'
Placid, dull, contented Vinnie saw, as did Jude, something behind Jaen's brightness. Only once did she venture to hint to Jaen that she knew a bit about the use of alum and certain oils that could make a cottage fill less speedily with children. Jaen said that she did not like alum, and Vinnie left it at that.
There is only so much close friends can do for one another, and for the rest it often means standing by helplessly. And Vinnie had her hands full. What with Peter and Fancy, and her work at the main farm and their own plot. As well, being the one living next to France, she had undertaken the care of his cottage.
Jaen and Vinnie saw one another often enough, even though they only worked at the main farm at the busiest times such as planting, sheep-washing and harvesting. Vinnie always called out when she was going wooding so that occasionally they might go together. Vinnie was placid, and happy, and when she found that she was again pregnant at the same time as Jaen, she tried to rally their old intimacy.
When Fancy was four Jamie was born, by which time Jaen had Young Dan'l, Young Bax, Francis and Richard.
5
The loneliness that Jaen had always felt living in 'Clare worsened, particularly since she could see nothing that would change it. For a while there had seemed to be a chance.
At one time, Ed Hazelhurst had started riding over to see Jude. At first, Jaen hardly dared let herself think of the prospect of Ju's marrying Ed and coming to live close by.
There would be the problem of The Child, of course. But soon in her imagination she settled all that. The Child could still go on living with Ju. She was much happier with Ju. Or they might share her. Hanna could come and see them quite often — that would be all right. She would get to know her brothers . . . they could work together in the fields. Ju could teach them all to read and write. That'd please Dan. He didn't approve of Mother allowing Ju to learn such stuff, but he would like it no end if the boys learnt. He always said that they should get some schooling — if Ed married Ju, then she could teach them.
All that mattered was, if Ju married Ed, then it would be like it was before; she would have someone to talk to, someone who would listen, talk back, ask what she thought about things. If only Dan would have taken her seriously it wouldn't be so bad. She used to try to talk to him at one time, but not now. She had been put down too many times, laughing at the very idea that her experience had any value.
'A couple of women growing a rod or two of peas for Blackbrook market and a crown of rhubarb to sell to the apothecary, and they thinks they can run a place like Teg!'
She pinned a whole new future on Ed's interest in Ju.
The next time that Ju and her mother brought Hanna over for her duty visit, Jaen could not but help showing her disappointment when Ju made it plain that if there was any interest it was on Ed Hazelhurst's side, for she'd as soon marry the packman. 'At least with the packman I should get a free supply of coffee beans — I got a regular passion for drinking coffee since I tasted it.'
'I wish it had a been true, you'd a been such company, Ju.'
She could see how unbelievable it must seem that she should feel so lonely in a cottage filled with the great chest and shoulders and voice of Dan and the clatter and voices of her boys, and the maids who sometimes came to help out.
By the time Young Dan'l was five years, and Bax a year younger, they were as lubberly and as large as bull-calves. Three year-old Francis seemed to be twice the size of his cousin Margaret, who at the same age, looked as though a puff of wind might blow her away; and Richard, even when he was still on all fours, seemed to need more space than all the farm dogs put together. When Vinnie with Fancy and baby Jamie came into the Ham Ford cottage, they were like nine-pins tumbled in a box.
Ju was now quite taken over by learning her letters. She had changed their way of farming and had built up a good market trade. She had every hour of her day filled with things that interested her. She was so clever. Why would she want to marry a bunch of muscles like Ed?
Jaen had felt the loneliness grow back over her like thick ivy, shutting out the light, undermining her.
Throughout her childhood and girlhood, she had been ill-fed with any affection apart from Jude's, but Jude's love was a kind of adoration, which pushed Jaen into an adult role of giving at an early age. That hunger, for an affectionate arm about her or a pat upon her hand, was below her level of conscious desire. She was not aware of being rejected by Bella — she longed for such small caresses but did not know that she so longed for them. When she met Dan she was hungry for affection.
But it had been like feeding a starveling with fat pork. What she had needed was more digestible kind of affection such as Dan's older brother now seemed to offer. Compared to the sweating heaving Dan, France, with his quiet solitariness and the safe messages that were sent only with his e
yes, became her fantasy love.
She had seen how harshly he sometimes used to treat Annie; she saw and heard him being as 'Hazelhurst' as the rest of The Boys; she had seen the real France, but she ignored him, preferring the fantasy France, the quiet shepherd who had been kind on the day when Hanna was born.
Tending the flock on the downs behind Jaen's cottage, France saw her leave and walk along the path at the bottom of Keeper's Hill. She was alone; one of the maids from the main farm was temporarily at the Ham Ford Cottage helping with the little boys who seemed to be everywhere at once, and the baby who could move so fast on his knees that he often had to be confined by a tether for his own safety. Had Jaen taken one of them with her, then France might not have walked downhill. But with each baby that she carried, the swelling of her legs became progressively worse so that if she walked, it was slowly, and little boys were too much to cope with.
'You looks well enough, Jaen.' He used to call her 'Gel', and his using her Christian name had been the first change in his attitude towards her that she had noticed.
She sat on a tree that had recently been felled. The smell of the fresh sap rose and mingled with the crushed moss and wood sorrel where they had walked.
'For a mother of a brood like mine, I'm fair.'
In his mind he said to her that it was true that she was fair, and that when he had seen her, almost nine years to the day, wasn't it, the day she was wed? — on that day he had been ashamed of his thoughts when he had seen her come from the Cantle church on Dan's arm.
This was not true, but he had made it so whilst tending his sheep and thinking of her. When he had begun to love her, he had gone over every picture of her that was in his memory.
His memory now held a great many retouched pictures.
It was true that she was fair. Her face was peach-coloured, her lashes only slightly darker than the pale of gold of her eyebrows. Her light bone structure gave her face a fragile appearance, small almond-shaped chin, small nose and wide-spaced eyes. The bright smile she was accustomed to wear so often had caused small creases to form at the corners of her eyes — there were no creases on her brow. It appeared that the bearing of children in quick succession had improved upon the features of the girl who had left the Cantle church less than a decade ago. The ravages were hidden — almost hidden for, even this early in the day, her feet showed swollen and shapeless beneath her skirt.
'Are you all right these days, France?'
He nodded.
Asking questions outright like that when there was no one else there, was part of a change in their relationship that was taking place. A kind of verbal dance they did, where one would step forward with a comment and retreat, the other would bow and nod with a reply; but their conversation never joined hands and went twirling off — they each were aware of the danger there.
Perhaps Jaen feels protected by the movement of the baby. She takes another step.
'Don't you ever think of going to look for Annie? Don't you want . . .?'
'No!' Sharply.
The dance halts in mid-step.
Whilst she has been seated, he has been crouched with one knee on the ground idly picking off sprays of crab-apple blossom that have flowered even though the tree is cut down; now he picks off the little pink buds and flicks them away one by one towards his dog who jumps to catch them.
'Don't do that to flowers.'
He looks at his hands with surprise and says 'Sorry' without thinking why.
Then, more gently than the first time, he says, 'No. We never would a made a go of it. She was desperate for children; I don't think nobody can really blame her for what she done.'
'That's not true. What about Martha? You know what it done to Martha, never really knowing where the girl is, if she's all right or no?'
He begins picking at the blossoms again so she reaches for them. He gives them to her.
She sits holding them like a posy before her unborn quiet child.
'Can I ask you summit?'
She smiles. 'I don't know till you ask me.'
'It's about your first one. The little girl.'
Her voice comes out shriller than she intends.
'What about her?'
'I was only going to ask, is she going to live permanent with your mother?'
The question that asks itself of her daily, the question she puts aside not wanting the answer.
He sees the distress that shadows her face as she looks around for an answer.
'Ah. It an't no affair of mine. I shouldn't of asked:'
He thinks that her distress is that she wants the little girl. Suddenly the answer to the puzzle of why the child does not live with her and Dan, comes to him — it is that Dan is not the child's father and he will not have it under his roof.
It is no affair of his, so he tries to suppress his anger at his younger brother's insensitiveness to the fragile golden woman he has loved by watching her from the top of the downs.
'Now you'm at it.' He nods to the crab-apple blossoms that she has broken off and lie strewn upon her skirt.
'Oh!'
His sheep-dog comes and sits close, taking their attention upon itself, giving them a small breathing space. France now sits with his back against a bole facing Jaen and fondling the dog's ears.
'I was always grateful to you that day when she was born.'
'It an't going to happen again today is it?'
She smiles, starts to take a step into the conversation but retreats again for a few moments.
'That day . . . I thought the child was dead . . . I hoped it was. It don't sound sense to say it, but I thought if it was . . dead . . . I could go back home and start all over again. I thought everything would come right if I could start again.'
By making that confession, she has given France permission.
At first, two solo dancers in their verbal dance.
'I can't think of you like a sister no longer.'
Still solo, Jaen says, 'I never wanted the Child, but she was as much my fault as his. First off I thought after she was born I was sure that I must take to her, natural. But I never did.'
'Sometimes I sits for hours on Brack, waiting to see you come out of your place.'
He tries to catch her gaze, but she is looking inwardly, continuing as though he has not spoken.
'Like mother, like child. My mother never took to me. I think that it an't something that can be helped, but nobody never tells you it's possible not to take to your own child.'
'I can't help myself.'
'When they took the Child over home to stop for a bit, I went up on Brack and d'you know what I did? I promised I should be a good wife and mother if only the Child I couldn't take to stopped away.' She suddenly looks directly at him. 'Do you think that was wicked, France?'
'No!'
The force of his reply brings a lump to her throat.
Keeping a good distance between, he sits beside her upon the felled tree. There are no longer any barriers to what they may say to one another. They link verbal hands and move with slow steps.
'Why did you marry our Dan?'
'Because of the Child a course . . . they said I should. Not Dan, but he wasn't unwilling.'
'I had an idea it was he what might of sent her away because . . .' to complete the sentence he must admit to what has been buried in his mind about her — part of his fantasy.
'She's Dan's child then?'
'Course she is. It's why we got wed.'
'It's only that I never would a thought he'd have let no child of his own go to somebody else.'
'If she'd a been a boy he wouldn't have, but she wasn't really a good enough prize for finding himself tied to somebody like me.' His obvious tenderness towards her makes her open with him.
'He should of married somebody different. I never realized how different it'd be. Mother brought us up hard, but we never had no father nor brothers. When I was old enough, she would always let me have my say about everything to do with our farm.' She smi
led wryly. 'She never always took much notice, but she never gave me orders, not once I was growed. It's been hard being told what to do by Dan.'
'There an't nothing wrong with that. I reckon most husbands has a year or two of aggravation before wives gets settled down.'
She is not listening.
'I have been a good wife to him, like I promised that day on Brack, except that I haven't never felt nothing warm for him.'
She has implanted an enduring image in France's fantasy. Dan fathered their children, but that is her only link with him. She is free to be loved by France.
'Do you think I be wicked, Jaen?'
She frowns a little in puzzlement.
'You'm my brother's wife,' he says. 'The Church says 'tis incest.'
'I never been able to understand how strangers can suddenly become brothers or sisters just because of marrying into a family.'
'Bible says it is a sin.'
She can see that they are leading one another into a quagmire that must suck them down. She feels as heavily pregnant as though near her time. She feels tenderness towards him, a chaste and thankful love. A safe, ideal love. How can such love be a sin?
The child lies between her and France, protects her from wrongdoing, and gives her permission to love her husband's brother like this. Unfleshly. Chaste love.
. . . Permission . . .
She says, 'It says 'n all, it's a sin to love somebody when you'm already married,' and reaches to touch his tightly crimped beard that she has felt a hundred times in her fantasy.
France lays a hand upon hers, holding it to his face.
'I don't see no road out of that one. For you'm married, and I'm still Annie's husband. But I loved you even before she went off.'
. . . permission to ignore the rules of the Church of God of nailed hands . . .
'I wondered if you did. I hoped in my heart you did. Many's the time when we met accidental, it wasn't no accident.'
. . . permission to love her brother . . .