A Mother's Sacrifice

by Catherine King

  He was inside with the butcher for a long time and came out the worse for drink. But he untied her, picked up the straw halter and said, ‘Bring your box to stand on.’

  It was the most appalling humiliation that Quinta had ever experienced, standing in a line of down-trodden, ill-dressed men and women to be prodded and picked over like the sheep in their pens waiting to be sold.The same farmers and butchers that leaned over the hurdles and poked fleeces with their staves walked past her using the same sticks to lift aside her straggling hair and stare into her face.

  ‘How much?’ one asked. But when Noah told him he moved on and Quinta was pathetically thankful for that. She was reassured that no one would buy her and Noah would leave her here in lodgings until her baby was born to learn her lesson. She began to hope for that, especially when a dark-bearded shepherd in a thick grubby country smock lingered, even when he knew her price, and hooked his crook under the bottom of her skirt, lifting it clear of her ankles.

  She bent down to shake it free. ‘Stop him, Noah!’

  ‘Nay, lass. He has to look at what he’s buying.’ He grasped the folds of her skirt and lifted it higher. ‘Sturdy one, she is,’ he said.

  He placed a cold hand around her calf and then slid it upwards to squeeze at her thigh. The straw halter was around his wrist and it fell heavily against her leg, snagging at her stockings.

  ‘Feel that. She’ll give you good service with a grand pair of legs like these. Got proven breeding an’ all in her, this one has. You can see that for yourself.’ He had his own staff in his other hand and he passed it over the curve of her stomach, flattening the folds of her skirt to show her bulge.

  Quinta was mortified by his words and her heart started thumping. She might just be able to accept being sold as a servant to work as a housekeeper. But to imply that she might be bought to provide more children for some High Peak sheep farmer was too much to bear. She kept her eyes down as the shepherd lingered, grateful that he had more respect for her than Noah and refrained from touching her. She stole a glance at his face, met his piercing dark eyes and looked away hastily.

  ‘I’ll give you three guineas,’ he replied.

  Noah shook his head and grimaced. ‘No deal,’ he said.

  ‘It is all I have.’ The shepherd moved on, closely followed by a black and white dog at his heels.

  Quinta breathed out raggedly. She hadn’t realised how tense she had become and said to Noah, ‘Please let me get down now. I am very tired and no one here can pay your price. Take me where I am to stay to have my child. Please, Noah.’

  It was the truth. Her baby was heavy in her belly and she was exhausted from standing there for what seemed like hours and from the anxiety of taking part in this humiliating spectacle.

  ‘I’ll get what I ask.You’ll see. Here comes Miss Banks. She’ll have heard about you from the inn.’

  The prospect of being taken on by a woman cheered Quinta. But Miss Banks looked as bleak and colourless as the overcast sky, and her pale blue eyes had a cold stare that unnerved her. She was very thin and a sallow skin stretched over her face. Her bony hands clutched at a leather satchel as she approached them.

  ‘They say you have a wife for sale.’

  ‘Aye, this one here.’

  ‘And that she is with child.’

  ‘It is no secret. You will have two for the price of one.’

  ‘Who was the father?’

  ‘He was a travelling man with a strong back and a - a sound mind.’

  Quinta was surprised that Noah had seen fit to say anything good about Patrick but she kept her eyes down.

  ‘Can she graft?’ the woman asked.

  ‘More than that. She can read and write.’

  ‘Can she?’ Miss Banks sounded interested.

  ‘She’s just right for your Davey. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘She’s dear, though, seeing as you get the two of them.’

  ‘I know how much you’re asking. It’s all round the inn.’

  ‘Interested then?’

  ‘What’s she got in the box?’

  ‘It’s linen for her and the babby. She made it all herself.’

  The spinster chewed at the inside of her mouth. ‘Well, yon butchers have paid a good price for my old ewes this year. Not many for sale, you see, after all that snow killed a few off. I’ll just go and settle up with the auctioneer and be back to pay for her.You can take her down.’ Miss Banks spat on her grimy hand and held it out.

  Noah echoed her action and their palms touched. ‘I have a cart round the back of the inn. I’ll wait for you there.’

  Quinta froze to the spot. He really meant to do this. He had struck a deal to sell her. Sell her as a wife to someone else! She did not believe it was happening until Noah pulled at her arm and she half fell off her box.

  ‘Pick it up,’ he ordered. ‘You’re on your way.’

  ‘Where am I going, Noah? Who is this woman and why isn’t her son Davey here for himself?’

  ‘You’ll find out.’

  She struggled with the rope handles of her box in front of her stomach and pleaded, ‘I’ll have to have a sit-down, Noah. I feel weak.’

  ‘You’ll be as right as rain after a bite to eat.’ He bought her a mutton patty from a pie-seller in the square and she sat on a low stone wall in a brisk breeze to devour it. ‘Aren’t you having one?’ she asked.

  He smirked. ‘There’ll be a good dinner for me at the inn when I’m rid of you.’

  She wondered where she would be eating her next meal. ‘Will you fetch me a drink?’

  ‘Get one yourself. The pump’s over there.’

  She thought she might have a chance to make a run for it but he followed close behind her and waited while she drank. She guessed he would see to it that she had no chance to escape until he had his five guineas. Although the food and drink revived her a little, she was weary from the journey and cold from standing in the marketplace and, for the present, no longer wished to flee. Surely being a servant to Miss Banks wouldn’t be as bad as being a wife to Noah Bilton? Not unless she really expected her to marry her Davey? Was it her son, she wondered. Miss Banks? Perhaps he was born out of wedlock? If so, maybe she would have some sympathy for her situation.

  She couldn’t marry this Davey, anyway. Her marriage to Noah had been a proper one in the village church. They had taken vows in front of the Lord and the vicar had written their names in his parish register. For better or for worse, she would tell Miss Banks and her Davey. Selling her at a hiring fair could not nullify God’s law, whatever their local customs were. Her eyes began to close and her knees felt wobbly. She slid down the wall, the rough stones grazing her back, to sit on her box and rest.

  She noticed Noah watching her with a sneer on his face. He really did hate her for what she had done. But even now she did not regret it because she had had no choice at the time. Noah’s lies had seen to that.And if he had been a proper husband to her in the bedchamber he would never have discovered her deception. Her child’s true father could have stayed her secret.

  Noah grasped the back of her gown and heaved her upwards. ‘Get yourself moving. I’m ready for another jar of ale from the inn.’

  The inn yard was cluttered with horses and their droppings. She climbed on to the back of Noah’s cart, grateful for a rest. Noah took hold of a hank of rope and approached her.

  ‘Please don’t tie me again, Noah. I won’t go anywhere, I promise. I’m too tired.’

  ‘You won’t get far round here, anyway,’ he said as he bound her wrists to the cart. ‘Not in these hills in your state. I’ll be watching you from the window, though.’ He picked up the straw halter and walked off.

  She must have slept, for the next thing she knew, Miss Banks was reaching up and putting the straw halter over her head. Then she undid the rope that bound her wrists and said, ‘Get down from there.’

  As soon as her hands were free, Quinta pulled at the hal
ter. ‘Take that off! It scratches.’

  The older woman gave her a sharp cuff at the side of her head. ‘Don’t you tell me what to do! This shows you’re bought and paid for and you’ll wear it ’til I say you can take it off.’ She jerked the free end, making Quinta wince. ‘Bring your box.’

  The roadway outside the inn was crowded now that the market had finished. Sheep farmers, butchers and other traders lingered, enjoying their gains from buying or selling. The worse for ale, they prodded and jeered at her as she stumbled after Miss Banks. ‘Is it far?’ she asked.

  ‘Speak when you’re spoken to or you’ll feel the back of my hand again.’

  She did not think she could keep walking for long without collapsing and was flooded with relief when Miss Banks stopped by a couple of farm horses tethered near to a mounting stone. One was fitted with a ladies’ saddle and the other heavily loaded with bundles and sacks of supplies. A stocky man with a black beard and wearing a rough country smock loomed out of the shadows with a sheepdog by his feet. Quinta recognised him as the shepherd who had lifted the edge of her skirt with his crook in the marketplace. She hugged her box as close as she could, glad to be enclosed in her cloak.

  ‘You’ve bought the wife, then? Best get going if we’re to be home afore darkness,’ he said without looking at her.

  Was he Davey? she wondered. The shepherd who could not afford Noah’s price? She daren’t look at him or Miss Banks, or utter a word for fear of being struck again. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep going before she fainted. But she must stay alert. She must note the way they travelled so she could retrace her steps when she escaped. For escape she would, she thought firmly. She might be too tired to think straight now, but what Noah had done to her was degrading, inhuman even, and she was not going to tolerate it. The straw halter around her neck scratched at her skin every time she moved, and every graze increased her determination to make Noah pay for what he had done to her.

  ‘I’ll move some of the supplies to your mount, Miss Banks,’ the shepherd said. ‘She’ll not walk the distance in her condition. ’ He set about repacking the horses.

  Quinta was flooded with relief as he deftly rearranged the sacks and formed a space for her to sit side-saddle-fashion in reasonable comfort on the horse’s broad back. Then he helped Miss Banks up the mounting stone to her seat and finally settled her wordlessly on her mount.

  ‘Thank you, Davey,’ she whispered as he tied on her box.

  ‘I’m not Davey,’ he answered abruptly, fixing the reins of Miss Banks’s horse to the rear-harnessing on hers. He took up the bridle of her mount and led them off in single file away from the inn. His dog seemed to know the way and ran on ahead.

  They left behind the inn and the town, which soon disappeared in the folds of the hills. She sat upright for as long as she could, losing count of the streams and narrow stone bridges they crossed, but their progress over the rocky tracks was slow and eventually her body sagged to one side. She rested her head on a sack of flour, welcoming the relative softness and too tired to care about beetles crawling under her hood into the warmth of her hair.

  She thought briefly that the shepherd had behaved quite kindly towards her, making sure she was safe and comfortable before setting off. But Miss Banks was not the sympathetic spinster she had anticipated. For an old woman she seemed quite strong and Quinta guessed that only the tough survived an existence on these isolated moors. As they bumped and jolted over the steep stony track, she saw only acres of rocky moorland and an occasional shepherd’s hovel built of stone and turf. They did not pass any coal pits, nor many woodlands, and she wondered what they used for fuel.

  The horses climbed slowly out of the valley, taking a track in the opposite direction to the South Riding and going deeper into moorland. The wind whipped around her ears and she drew her hood closely about her head. Soon they were high enough to be shrouded in mist again, a damp penetrating drizzle that soaked into her cloak and through to her shawl.

  The shepherd threw some old sacking around his shoulders as he plodded on, guiding the horses along the worst of the rocky path. When the light faded completely and everything became totally black, she marvelled that he could find his way, but she guessed that there were not many tracks to follow up here. She did not see any farmsteads, nor even bridleways leading to them. It seemed as though she was going to the ends of the earth and she wondered how she would ever find her way back.

  Eventually they rounded a hillside, the climb steepened and Quinta glimpsed a light, a dim glow ahead that eventually delineated a small window in a low building. Was this her new home? And her new husband? She shivered. It was such a very long journey from anywhere. She had thought at first that Noah simply wanted her out of the way until she had given birth to her baby, and that he would take her back afterwards. Her greatest worry had been that he would force her to give up her child. Now she knew he never wanted to see her again. Noah had had his revenge on her. He had ensured that she would vanish from his life and all she had known in the Riding. She wondered what he would tell people about her disappearance.

  ‘You! Girl!’ It was Miss Banks calling to her. ‘You stay down so he can’t see you.’

  Quinta did as she was told. The shepherd released the reins and led her packhorse away. She heard the woman climb down from her mount and yell, ‘Davey! Davey! Get out here and see to this horse.’

  After a few moments, an excited voice cried, ‘You’re back, you’re back, you’re back.’

  He sounds just a boy, Quinta thought. A young boy, surely not ready for marriage yet?

  ‘Quiet, Davey,’ Miss Banks ordered. ‘You’ll spook the horse. Give him a good rub-down, some mash and water. Go on now.’

  When he had gone she walked over to Quinta and said, ‘Get down and inside, you. He doesn’t know about you and I don’t want him to until morning. He’ll not sleep if he sees you tonight.’

  Quinta was tired and cold and hungry but not so exhausted that she did not feel a mounting anger with the assumption that she was some sort of gift for this Davey. She followed Miss Banks into the small farmhouse. There was one large room on the ground floor with a wooden staircase in the corner. It was dingy and smoky. Dull embers glowed in the grate.

  ‘Make up the fire,’ the older woman ordered and Quinta hurried towards its warmth.

  ‘What is this?’ she asked, picking up a block of what she supposed was fuel from the hearth.

  ‘Peat.’

  ‘Is there no coal?’

  Miss Banks did not reply. She walked over to her and pulled her shoulder round roughly. ‘Let’s get this straight from the start. I’ve heard all about your hoity-toity ma and how she thought you were too good to marry old Noah until some soldier’s lad put this in your belly.’ She gave her a sharp dig with a bony finger. ‘Well, I’ve paid good money for the both of you and you belong to me and my Davey now. So you don’t ask questions. You follow orders.’

  Quinta frowned silently.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Miss Banks demanded.

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘That’s better. You’ll sleep in the scullery for tonight so get yourself in there and stay put until I come in and fetch you.’

  ‘I’m hungry, Miss Banks.’

  ‘So am I. You’ll wait for your breakfast like me.’

  ‘But my baby won’t.’

  Miss Banks pursed her mouth. She went to a large stone crock on the table and took out the end of a loaf of bread. Then she poured some dark liquid from a ewer on the table into tin mug and snapped, ‘Bring your box.’

  Quinta followed her into the adjoining scullery. There was no moonlight showing through the tiny window but in the dim light from a lantern she made out a wooden pallet hung on two nails in the wall. Miss Banks put the food and drink on a draining board beside a shallow stone sink.

  ‘I have to go to the privy,’ Quinta said.

  ‘There’s a slop bucket under the sink. Get yourself settled before m
y Davey comes back. I don’t want a sound from you until I fetch you out in the morning or you’ll feel my horsewhip across your back.’ She closed the door firmly, turning a key in the lock and leaving her in blackness.

  Quinta sat on her box and ate the hard dry bread hungrily, then swallowed the ale, which was good and very welcome. She was too tired to contemplate her future here. Miss Banks had a lined face and was grey-haired; Davey sounded too young to be her son. No doubt the questions she was not allowed to ask would be answered tomorrow.

  Her head was stinging from where she had been hit earlier on and she did not doubt that Miss Banks would carry out her threat of horsewhipping. She flung aside the straw halter and stroked her bulge. She must protect her unborn child and she resolved to do Miss Banks’s bidding - whatever that was - until after he was born.

  She spoke softly to her baby, reassuring him. Whatever the future held, she would look after him. He would always be safe with her. She promised him that. Or her, she thought. She had not long to go now. She expected to give birth after Eastertide when daffodils would be blooming, and wondered whether her child would be a boy or a girl. In spite of her fearful situation she felt excited by the prospect of being a mother and cocooned herself in that thought as she curled up on her hard bed.

  After the bread and ale and the travelling, Quinta slept soundly for a while on the uncomfortable pallet, in spite of the damp, although she woke stiff and sore before dawn. The cloud had lifted and a pale moon shone through the scullery window. There was a back door, but it was bolted and locked. She searched quietly and without success along the walls and shelves for a key. The rain had stopped and the mist was lifting, though it still shrouded the tops of the hills.There was a wildness about the hills here; they were rugged and rocky with only patches of vegetation and barely discernible clumps of woolly sheep. Her hopes of escaping from this isolated farmstead in her condition were fast receding.