by Betty Burton
'All you got to do is to be led by what they asks you. He won't ask you to tell nothing that an't true.'
Just answer what they ask you, then you are not likely to find yourself hounded out of the Four Parishes with your two children.
Questions that might have given the jury pause for thought about the value of Nell Gritt's evidence were never asked, because no one knew that they should be asked.
Did you receive any monetary advantage from the Accused's family, Mistress Gritt?
Are you now living in a cottage with a decent roof, repaired by the labour of Up Teg Farm, Mistress Gritt?
Is it possible that the child that you carry was fathered upon you by the Accused or a brother of the Accused, Mistress Gritt?
Were you afraid to refuse Mistress Hazelhurst when she suggested that you give evidence of mental disturbance in the Accused's wife, Mistress Gritt?
But she was QUEER, Your Honour, I seed her myself. Same as I seed her plenty a times goin' with the Accused's brother. And I knows what she was like, for France Hazelhurst would often come to me for comfort he never got from her, even though he reckoned he loved her more'n life itself. At least so he said, Your Honour, Sir. And none of what I said is a lie.
And perhaps France did, truly, love Jaen.
One day his flock was found scattered and wandering. France was gone. What the family had felt uneasy about but had left unsaid, was now hinted at, but only to another close member of the family. There had a been summit going on between her and France.
8
WINCHESTER TO NEWTON CLARE
On the first day of the journey, the coach took the same route as when Betrisse came from the south, then, when it reached the high downs, turned right so to speak and headed away from the early morning sun.
Now that she had walked the length and breadth of Winchester, Betrisse saw from the coach window a city that was to her no longer only a pattern of stone and brick and trees spread across the valley; it was familiar now. It scarcely seemed possible that she had been living within its old gates and walls but a few days.
Now though, although she was still excited and drawn to the activity and interest of city life and did not want to leave it, she was glad of this respite to order her thoughts.
As she watched the cathedral, the colleges, the castle and all the huddle of red and grey roofs disappearing from view, she determined that, no later than when the trees were in full leaf, she would be back to start the life in the city that she was eager for. The prospect of legal problems, the ties of conventions and other obstacles that might lie in the path of a spinster with unwomanly ambition, did not deter her — before she had left childhood, Annie had shown her how to be self-sufficient and a free spirit.
But for now, she had a few hours in a jolting coach that would take her to Four Post Hill on the parish border of Newton Clare.
The original reason for her journey to Winchester, the purchase of the Up Teg property, had faded in the echoing courtroom. It was there too that she determined to go back to her birthplace to discover why she felt so very uneasy. Like the basket-woman, she thought that what had been told in Court was only part of the truth.
'I should give summit to hear what really happened, wouldn't you? Look at the size of him. His wife'd have to be a pretty big woman to have got the better of him.'
Betrisse remembered Jaen in her wedding-dress, and Elizabeth saying she looked like a thistle-seed, and a puff of wind could carry her off.
Where were they all? When the Judge had spoken to the Jury of 'the victim, a poor distracted woman' and of 'uncurbed anger', Dan had wept openly, but no look of comfort was directed at him, he had been alone in the courtroom; when the verdict 'Guilty as Charged' was given, he was alone; when the sentence of Transportation was given, he was alone.
She thought of the weddings, christenings, harvests and other gatherings, and of the last time that she had been at Up Teg, when the room had been overflowing with Hazelhursts.
On the last day of the trial she had particularly watched the people in the public gallery to see if he had any friend there but, apart from herself and the red-haired woman and her lover, it was obvious that there were only voyeurs and timewasters present. Right to the end, Judeth Nugent had sat very still, and even when the verdict and sentence were announced, did not appear to react.
Betrisse had thought, I should not like to be you.
9
CROUD CANTLE
Hanna was surprised at her own lack of emotion when John Toose came to find her.
'Miz Jude says I should tell you. They gid him fifteen years. He a be transported.'
'How old will he be when he comes back then?'
'Hanny, he an't likely to come back. They dies like flies on the ships taking them, and then there's terrible fevers in the places they take them to.'
'How old?'
'I reckon he a be about sixty years old when he've done his time there.'
'And little George will be about the same age as you are now.'
'Hanny, put it out of your mind. He won't come back. Why don't you go and talk to Miz Jude?'
'Later.'
'I have to say it, Hanny — you an't been fair to her. She's grievous hurt that you won't talk to her proper. Just answering her questions and that — not proper talking.'
'Jude don't understand.'
'Why don't you try and make her understand then?'
'John.' With a small rebuke in her voice. 'If Jude was to come and tell you I was . . .' she hesitates, wanting to explain to him. 'Suppose she told you that I had got a lover in Blackbrook and he wanted to get wed to me . . .'
'Hanny!'
'. . . or that I stole, or was free with village boys . . .'
'Hanny. Stop!'
She looks fiercely at him. 'Suppose that, John.'
'I should never believe a word of it.'
'But if it was true?'
'It isn't, Hanny. I know you. I known you since you was a little baby. I know what you are like.'
'Suppose though I grew up different when I was living at 'Clare?'
'Hanny, Hanny. I can see you here and now, you are just the same as ever.'
'Supposing I was DEAD. And Jude told you it was all true.'
'I still shouldn't believe her.'
Hanna said nothing, but looked at him with raised brows. He looked directly back at her until he had absorbed what she implied.
'And if you thought anything of me, you would spend the rest of your life torn by wondering whether there was just a hint of truth in it, wouldn't you? It an't no good saying you wouldn't, it'd only be natural. And that's why I can't never tell Jude that Jaen wasn't like she thought her to be.'
John fell silent for several moments.
'You'm right, Hanny. It'd be unfeeling. You can't talk to her about that, but you can start being nice to her.'
If Hanna was ever a child, it was long ago. Still only on the verge of womanhood her manner is that of a much older woman, one who has been buffeted about by life. Hanna Hazelhurst has been buffeted.
'It came to me one day — when Jaen was flitting between being up and down like she was sometimes — that they was like twins who was split. Jude and Jaen. Jaen and Jude. When I was little, Jude was always telling me how Jaen used to take her out on Tradden and make up stories. Jude used to have such a light in her eyes when she told it, like they had found some magic place. Then, when she . . . Jaen . . .' she paused and then makes herself say, 'my mother . . . first began to be strange, she used to tell me the same things, about when Jude was little.'
I was only thinking about that the other day, Ju. That day I met France and he had picked some violets for me. I told him of that place on Tradden where I used to take you to get white violets. D'you remember, Ju? Did I tell you about France?
I'm Hanna.
Hanna? All right, but I shall be sure to forget.
D'you remember I used to tell you that white violets was special because they gave up thei
r colour to make God a cloak. Do you still remember that, Ju?
We used to pick them and put ivy leaves round them like a collar. Or sometimes it was snowdrops, and we would take them home to Mother. Didn't we, Hanna? I forgot. Why must I call you 'Hanna', Ju? Who is Hanna? I get so mixed up with you. Why didn't Mother ever say, 'Oh an't they pretty, 'or' An't you girls nice bringing me posies'? She never though, not once, did she, Ju? I used to try to cast spells on her to make her say a kind thing to me.
France is kind to me.
I'm glad that Dan made you come and live here. I been that lonely since I come here. But now you have come to live it is nice. Mother will still have my baby to keep her company.
Do you like France, Ju?
He was kind to me. It was once when my waters broke. Dan is like Mother . . . 'Oh come on, Gel, don't make no fuss.' But France was kind.
It was better when Mother took the baby. I don't know why, Ju, but I couldn't abear touching it. When it was born, I looked at it and I thought . . .
How would Dan like it if he was gored by a bull, then instead of the wound mending it swelled up into a child. I asked him that once and he . . .
. . . when I looked at the baby, I thought, 'That can't be mine, I never wanted no baby, it can't be mine.' That's funny, Ju, when you think of it, for it had just come out of me . . . and I was thinking, 'It can't be mine.'
France . . . was always kind, Ju. Do you like France? Do you see that little George looks like France? George has got just the same hair. One day he will have a beard like France too. Do you like to feel a tight-curled beard, Ju?
(I'm Hanna. Jude don't come any more.)
Yes, Jaen, I like him.
That's good. He was kind to me the day that baby was born.
John Toose waits for Hanna to return from one of the deep reveries that she sometimes falls into. It has happened many times since she came back home. He puts an arm about her and waits for the stream of silent tears to stop. He is an intelligent and observant young man. His work with developing new strains of plants has given him the eye of a meticulous observer and a gardener's patience.
He sees that each time she goes back in her mind to her past misery, each time she cries, she has afterwards withdrawn a bit more from her ordeal. He knows she will get better and waits patiently for it to happen.
'You could still talk to Miz Jude a bit more. Miz Rosie nor Master can't talk. Will you, Hanny? She was grievous upset that time when your father wouldn't let you come back here.'
Of course — it was her father who was to blame, not Jude; she knows it as she has always done.
Hanna wishes that she could make herself more of a replacement for Jaen, but she knows that she has always failed in this — as she failed Jaen for not being Jude.
10
FOUR POST HILL
At the crossroads where the coaches halted for rare passengers who wished to alight at Newton Clare, there was no inn or alehouse, just a cottage where the tenant would give shelter or a place to wait to those who would buy his ale.
Betrisse left her travelling-bag there and set out walking up the slight incline to the top of Four Post Hill, towards where it began its gentle slope down to the village.
There had been a time when she had thoughts of returning, or rather of being brought back, but that was years ago. And certainly she could never have imagined herself striding along the Rathley Road.
As some days ago she looked down upon Winchester, so now she looks upon Newton Clare. Unexpectedly something catches her, a pang of regret, or sadness as she halts and takes in the village.
How tiny.
How very insignificant and small.
Like the figures moving about the fields, small, small and insignificant.
The river gleams its course through the heart of the village, clearly showing the shallow ford, but at Deep Run where Luke had floated still clutching his catch, Th'ammet hides beneath a cover of trees and shrubs. Deep Run where Luke had floated facedown all night.
Along the Tupnell Road there is the church surrounded by a cluster of cottages. More cottages strung out, where in the gardens, each with its sty and hen-coop, figures move. It will be planting time.
She tries to remember the names of the other holdings and farms. Brack Farm, Tupnell, Church Meadow . . .
She allows her gaze to follow where it is being inexorably drawn.
Facing her, directly to the south across the ford — Up Teg. To her right, westerly — One-Acre Cottage where Luke no longer lives, where Betrisse no longer lives. Does Martha still live there? West Cottage — where Dick and Elizabeth lived. Do they still live there? The unchanging image of Up Teg which she has always carried with her had begun cracking at its flaws when Ed came into their lives, and continued its disintegration during the time she was sitting in the Assize Courtroom.
A black-and-white dog races around the kitchen garden, but no person comes out to stop its yapping. Keeper's Cottage — where she once lived for a short time with Annie and France — when . . . ? It must have been when Deb and Alice had been born.
Ham Ford Cottage where Dan no longer lives, where Jaen no longer lives.
Where are all those children?
Where are the Hazelhursts who did not sit in the public seats and watch a morsel of their family history being picked over by anyone inclined to do so?
On the other side of the ford are several figures bending and planting. It is the time of potato planting. Is that what they are doing? Yes . . . that is the right pattern of workers. Betrisse is pleased that she still remembers all that. Potato planting. Strong-arm dibbers ahead of children with seed, and a woman or youth to follow scuffing earth into the holes and treading firm. That was the Norris Land. I thought that bit used to be water-meadows.
The Up Teg fields appear greened over from the distance of Rathley Road. She follows in her mind's eye what will be the newly drawn-up boundary of Up Teg. The boundary that is in the process of being agreed between solicitors in Winchester and Chichester — with no reference to anyone in that valley she now inspects.
And that is it — Newton Clare. Small and insignificant, a speck compared to Winchester. That is the whole of it except for one place that cannot be seen from Four Post Hill. That place is somewhere in the spinney at the bottom of Brack Down.
Yes, Your Honour, Sir — Nella Martha Gritt of Cuckoo Bushes Common.
The place that she has had fixed in her mind as a harsh and dark place for longer than a decade, is revealed as a small patchwork of reddish-brown earth. Some fields, those at the foot of Brack and Keeper's whitish, where chalk is near the surface. It is the place where she happens to have been born. It is the place in which she has invested her small savings.
Why has she done that? When they discussed it, the Emworthy group had said that it was as good a bit of property as any other to own, as long as it was cheap — which it was. They had said. But, Walking down towards the ford, Betrisse allowed herself to admit honestly to her own quite vengeful motives. But now Luke has gone.
11
CANTLE
Hanna walks back towards the cottage where Jude Nugent has returned to the welcome silence of her own home. The girl sees that her aunt has lost her tormented look.
Hanna is right about that. The muddle that had been in Jude's mind has gone. Those who took her sister away and killed her, then plotted to save the killer, have been punished. She listened to the case that was made out for the killer and knows that it was not true, knows that the poor creature who suggested that Jaen was mad had been pressed into perjury.
Bella Nugent sits as she always does now, in a half-life with only one side of her body working.
Rosie, Jude Nugent's half-sister, sews neat patches with neat stitches to make a bedcover to sell on the market.
'Jude,' Hanna says. 'John told me. He got transported then.'
Jude nods. 'Fifteen years! Only fifteen years. If you think of what those places are like you've got to agree that it's a lo
nger punishment than hanging. Fifteen years' hard labour the other side of the world, each day another day of remembering what he did.'
Hanna wishes that she could make herself say something more, but it will not come. She takes the other end of Rosie's work and adds more patches. As John did, so does Rosie watch Hanna as she withdraws again to pick at the scab that is beginning to grow over her wound.
Hanna returns to the day when Jaen had said, 'I should like to see Rosie. An't it strange to think that Ju and me haves a kind of sister we never knew of?' It had been one of those times when Jaen could not tell Hanna from Jude, past from present.
'Do you know, Ju, since I been married, I know what it must of been like for Father. His nature . . . it isn't suited to being married to Mother, is it?
'He be all right if he a married a different sort of woman. So would Mother, wouldn't she? Mother ought to marry somebody steady. Dan's mother told me Father was wicked and sinful, but he's like his nature, an't he, Ju? Don't you think that 'tis a great pity that we can't repair they kind of mistakes, Ju?
'I dare say Dan can't help being like he is, and I dare say we should have been all right too . . . if I was a bit more, well . . . like Vinnie, not to care about things quite so much. And if Dan was the sort to be a bit . . . kinder.'
12
UP TEG
The hedgerow bordering the Norris Land was too high for Betrisse to see who was working there. For a moment she stood wondering whether to take the right-hand path and go first to One-Acre or to go on into Up Teg. The sun was getting up to an hour or so of its noon position. They would be coming in soon for their dinner-time break. She turns into the Up Teg yard.