by June Calvin
“But it’s part of the outdoor relief, ain’t it?”
Olivia shook her head. “Only the single loaf of bread distributed at the Flintridge bakery is from the government. It is intended to keep the laborer fit to do work when he is needed.”
At the sight of Olivia, the rest of the crowd had calmed and arrayed themselves around her on the steps. “Explain to my Jim, Miss Ormhill,” the red-faced woman called out. “Explain why he shouldna be a-workin’ for that new-made lord.”
Olivia sighed. “I can’t say what he should do, Mrs. Bleck. But I can advise him to put by the extra pay to feed his family this winter.”
“Thought you wuz a Christian woman,” groused another, older, man who stood just below Bleck on the steps. “Yet here ya go a-punishin’ our women and children a’cause we work for someone else.”
“It isn’t that at all,” Olivia responded once the agitated murmur that swept through the crowd at this statement died down. “It is like this: If I cannot get my hay and grain crops in before the weather turns, I’ll have nothing to feed my cattle. I’ll have to spend money for feed. That means I’ll not be able to afford to give bread out.”
“So sell ’em,” grumbled Mr. Bleck.
“If I sell them, what will Dick Wilson and half a dozen others who take care of my cattle do for work? They will have to go on the county then, and you know what that means.”
“The poorhouse, or starvation,” Mrs. Bleck shouted.
Olivia raised her voice to overcome the murmurs of distress in the crowd. “When the enclosures took the small holdings of many of the people in the valley, my father promised to see that those who stayed and continued to work on the land would not be the poorer for it. It was not required of him. The money paid you or your parents at that time was all the law required. But he felt, and Jason and I agree, that it wasn’t an entirely fair settlement, since so many would spend that money within a year or two and then be without the right to raise small gardens or gather wood, as they had previously.”
“Then why don’t you pay us more?” Bleck demanded.
“You’d just spend it on drink,” Mrs. Bleck asserted, and several women nodded and muttered assent, or glared at their menfolk.
“Higher wages would be one possibility. But Father feared just what Mrs. Bleck says: merely giving a raise in pay to compensate would not work, because some of you would spend that money as soon as it came into your hands.”
Murmurs ran through the crowd again. The women seemed ardently in agreement; the men less so, though Edmund noticed that many of them dropped their eyes or looked away.
“So we have always reserved as much of our grain as necessary to see through the winter those who worked for us—not just the workingmen, but their women and children as well. But without our crops to sell, without our hay to see our cattle through the winter, we won’t be able to do that. Not from cruelty, or as a punishment, but simply because the money won’t be there. Now, you may work for Lord Corbright. That is for you to decide. Only be careful with your funds if you do. Tomorrow my brother will go to High Wycombe to hire laborers, and then I will feel obligated to help them and their families through the winter. Do you understand?”
Mr. Bleck frowned, scratched his head, turned to look at the elder Mr. Jones, and at last nodded. “ ’Tis fair, I s’pose. Perhaps ’at fancy lord will give us bread, too.”
Mr. Jones nodded. “Surely he will, for didn’t he say he’d pay us more’n Miss Ormhill, and we’d be free of petticoat governance, too.”
In the twilight Olivia hoped her face did not show red, as it often did when she was angry. “That is, of course, your choice, Mr. Jones. You and your son may take yourself off now, if you please.”
“Not me, Mum.” The young man standing by Mr. Jones spoke up, addressing himself more to the crumpled cap he held in his hands than to Olivia. “I know I’m not safe wi’ the extra coin. If I don’t know it, my Sarah will be sure to remind me. A’sides, I never minded a-workin’ for you, miss.”
“Thank you, Silas.” Olivia smiled at him, then raised her voice once again. “Tomorrow comes early, whoever you work for. Go home now and talk it over. Any who wish to return to work here should be waiting at the main barn at first light. Our wagon will transport you to my brother’s north meadow.”
“Aye,” said Mr. Jones the younger. “ ’At ’un needs cutting right soon, miss! Gonna be turnin’ any day now.”
Olivia nodded. “And whatever choice you make, I pray we all can still meet in the village as friends.”
The workmen and their wives milled about a bit, talking among themselves. Some of these conversations were acrimonious, but most were quiet and thoughtful. Several, before they drifted away, climbed to where Olivia stood watching, and told her they would be returning to her in the morning. She smiled and shook hands with each such convert in turn.
As the last of them filtered away, Jason mounted the steps and embraced his sister. “Well done, Livvy. I hope someday I may be as wise and capable a man as you.”
She pulled away a little, and jabbed at his forearm with her right hand. “Et tu, Brute,” she said, chuckling. “Why, oh why, is the ability to deal with such situations seen as masculine?”
“That was not my meaning,” Jason sputtered.
“I know, dearest.” She slanted a look at Edmund, who had observed the whole without comment. I wonder what he thinks of me now? Looking at his grim expression, she decided he must see her as the veriest ape leader in the kingdom.
Edmund watched the brother and sister’s affection with envy. As he had yesterday, he regretted the vast difference from his relationship with his siblings. Suddenly he had lost all appetite for that pint at the tavern, and the company of the fortunate Jason Ormhill or any other human being.
“Jason, I’ve changed my mind,” he said, abruptly turning on his heel. “I believe an early bedtime will do me more good than anything else.”
Olivia sniffed the air suspiciously. The dawning day looked to be fine, but there was a hint of moisture that made her uneasy. She needed at least two weeks with little or no rain to get her hay cut and in the barns.
To her relief, many of the workers whom Corbright had lured away stood in the stableyard as they had promised, waiting their turn to mount the estate wagon that would take them to the fields.
She was glad to see that the younger Jones was there, along with his wife, for he knew the art of loading hay wains and making up haycocks. His father, as well as Mr. Bleck, had apparently returned to the employment of Lord Corbright, but Olivia noted with wry amusement that Mrs. Bleck waited her turn to sit upon the long benches of the estate wagon.
She was not the only woman, of course. It had always been the custom for females to take part in the harvest. They spread the newly scythed grass evenly across the fields, and turned previous cuttings two or three days in a row until it was judged sufficiently dry to load upon the wagons. This was a crucial part of the haymaking process, for grass that was too wet when stored could mold and make the cattle ill when they ate it. It could also ferment and even catch on fire right in the barn.
“It looks as if we have sufficient workers,” Jason observed, looking to his sister for confirmation.
“If we were on time, I would agree, but it is going to be necessary to hire more to catch up. We particularly need men to do the cutting.”
“I can help with that until you have your full complement hired,” Edmund said.
Olivia turned a worried look on him. “Are you quite sure that you know how to use the scythe? It is hard work, and can be dangerous.”
Edmund nodded. “I have not used one in years, and at the time I did I could barely hoist it. Still, I managed to cut hay as a boy, and I am sure I can pick it up again in no time.”
“I should like to learn,” Jason asserted.
Olivia shuddered a little at the thought of her brother lifting and swinging the long, sharp blade, but knew better than to say so. “I truly need you
to go High Wycombe, Jason. As I explained last night, I need a man to hire the workers.”
“You had best go with me, then. I’ve no idea who would be best to hire.” So they left Edmund in charge, and brother and sister started on the trip. As soon as the estate wagon had delivered the workers to the field, it would follow them into High Wycombe to transport those whom they hired.
They had barely reached the main road when a rider approached them, pushing his mount hard.
“That’s Corbright’s livery,” Jason observed.
“I wonder if he knows how his man is using his horse,” Olivia responded, drawing her mount well to their side of the narrow country lane to give the rider room. To her surprise, he drew his horse up across the road, blocking them.
Jason muttered an oath as he pulled up beside her. “What do you mean by this?” he demanded.
The groom leaned forward. “I’ve a message for Miss Ormhill from Lord Corbright. He begs you to read it immediately, miss.” He offered her a sealed note, which she took reluctantly. When it was in her hands, he turned his horse and galloped back the way he had come.
Almost as if she expected it to hold a serpent, Olivia opened it gingerly. My dearly beloved Olivia, it began. She almost threw it upon the ground at the sight of those words, so false and so out of place, but curiosity drew her on.
My dearly beloved Olivia,
I prostrate myself at your feet with the most profound apologies for my behavior in the last few weeks. I can only plead a kind of madness since you once again spurned my offer of marriage. Somehow I must make you see how wrong you are about me, about our hopes for happiness, but I know I have gone the wrong way about it. I thought to make you see how you needed me by luring away your workers as any villain might do who wished you harm. But I see now that you think me the villain. It is not so. I do not wish you harm. Indeed, I have come to believe that you should retain your farm and the running of it, just as your father wished. When I saw how your eyes sparkled as you romped with Jason, how they darkened with worry as you thought of the problem I had caused you, I realized that you are not and never can be one of those frivolous females who decorate drawing rooms and spend their hours on clothes and cards. I have been a great fool to wish you to be so! I will not speak ill of my departed wife, but confine myself to saying that you are not she, and I am grateful for that. Please rescind your banishment of your humble suitor,
Corbright
P.S. I am sending my entire enrollment of estate workers to join with yours in bringing in your hay, as I have by my foolish behavior delayed you dangerously. As you read this, they will have commenced cutting in Jason’s north meadow. Do not say me nay, love, for this I owe you.
The tender words and protestations of love, so at odds with his recent behavior, created a riot of battling feelings in Livvy. Her hand shook as she held the letter, her cheeks pink and tears in her eyes.
“What does he say?” Jason demanded. When she looked up at him, unable to respond, he grabbed the paper from her and read it. He gave a long, low whistle when he had finished. “He had proposed to you?”
“In a letter,” she admitted. “Soon after his wife’s death. Too soon! And then again in the spring when I encountered him while visiting our tenants.”
“And then began to hire away your workers to teach you a lesson.” Jason frowned. “Odd. But he obviously regrets his actions. This puts a different face on things, does it not?”
“Perhaps. But we cannot allow him to cut our hay.”
“Why not? He has delayed our harvest and is trying to make up for it.”
“I don’t wish to be beholden to him.”
Jason considered the matter for a moment, head bowed. He was torn between loyalty to his sister and his desire to see her wed. “Livvy, he is trying to end this lovers’ quarrel. Why do you not meet him halfway?”
Is that what it is? Olivia wondered. A lovers’ quarrel? She knew little enough of the masculine mind. Was it possible that love could make a man behave so basely? Had she been wrong in concluding that Corbright had never loved her, and was a villain at heart?
“This is more than halfway, Jason. I cannot accept so much from him. It might seem to commit me to something I doubt I want.”
The distress in her voice reawakened Jason’s conscience. “You are right. Until he proves himself, I can’t permit anything that obligates you—us—to him.”
“Thank you.” Olivia felt tears coming into her eyes. He truly was a fine, fond brother, for all his faults. “Now will you come with me to stop him?”
Olivia was not surprised to see Lord Corbright, mounted upon a fine bay hack, waiting for them in the north meadow, which was a scene of almost frenzied activity as scythe men advanced up the field in five rows, followed by those wielding the rakes to spread the fallen grass evenly. In the distance Edmund could be seen working with the group he had led out earlier. She wondered what he made of Corbright’s actions.
“Ah! My darling! You have received my missive.” Corbright pressed his mount alongside hers and leaned forward. “Do say that you forgive me.” He held out his hand to her.
She ignored his hand. “I forgive you, Lord Corbright, for luring my workers away with inflated wages. But we cannot allow you to cut our hay for us.”
Jason chimed in, “Wouldn’t be right.”
“Nonsense, Jason. Why do you not go and take a look at those horses of mine, give your sister and me some time to mend our fences, eh?”
“Pressing on her this unacceptable situation does not sound like a good way to mend your fences, Frank. Don’t think you can force your way into Livvy’s affections.”
Corbright glared at Jason, his neck and face becoming red. This alarmed Olivia, who immediately regretted involving her volatile brother.
“Jason speaks for me, Lord Corbright,” she said. “While I hope we can be on friendly terms, that is all. And even that cannot be if you persist in this . . . this . . .” She waved her hand at the busy scene before her.
“You would have me think you have completely forgotten what once lay between us? That you have no desire to make up our differences?”
“I would.”
“It is not to be believed. If you were not still wearing the willow for me, you would have found a husband by now. But no. Three seasons have passed and you have buried yourself here in the country. Why, you do not even attend our local assemblies or parties.”
“Because I could not hire a satisfactory agent, I have been too busy for socializing,” Olivia said through gritted teeth. “But as you see, my brother is at last taking an interest in learning to manage his own land, and Lord Edmund has the makings of a fine estate manager. I have already laid plans to reenter society. In fact, by spring I expect to be able to enjoy another Season in London.”
Jason’s eyes widened. He grinned from ear to ear.
Corbright snorted. “I don’t believe a word of it. May will find you here, supervising spring planting.”
“No, sir, it will not. It will find me shopping for spring bonnets! Now, if you will just stop your workers and send them on to your own fields . . .”
“No.” Corbright looked at her intently. “I meant what I said. I was in the wrong, and must make amends.”
Olivia’s eyes flashed with fury. She drew breath for a harsh set-down, but Jason spoke first. “If they continue working in my fields, it must be for my wages, which I will pay,” he declared. “It is not that I wish us to be enemies, Franklin, for I do not. But to persist in this would put my sister in a questionable light. That I cannot allow.” His back ramrod straight, his chin jutting out, Jason faced the older, stronger man with all the assurance of a fighting cock.
Corbright visibly struggled for self-control, and won. “Very well. But I shall tell them I mean to take back only half of them and pay only the prevailing wage in future, so you may be easy. I need far fewer of them than I had anticipated, anyway, for I have purchased a new machine that will cut the grass in half
the time with only one or two men to work it.”
Nearby, one of the women engaged in spreading the grass looked up at them, alarm writ large upon her face.
Unaware or unconcerned, Corbright continued, “I have no doubt many will wish to return to your employ, so your harvest will be brought in on time. And as for me, well, my dear, I look forward to seeing you in local society, and in springtime I intend to be in London, too, admiring that bonnet!” He kissed his hand to her and turned his horse to ride across the field toward the lines of workers.
What have I done? Olivia glanced nervously at her brother. The triumphant look on his face made it clear she had really said what she had no intention of saying. My wretched temper, she thought. “Always keep your tongue between your teeth when you are angry,” her father had cautioned her on numerous occasions when she spoke before she thought. And at twenty-one years of age, she still committed the same error over and over.
“Livvy! Darling sister! You are going to go to London! You are going to seek a husband!” Jason leaned over to hug her, half lifting her from her saddle.
“I am not!”
“But you said—”
“You know I spoke without thinking. The nerve of that man, supposing I am wearing the willow for him.”
“It is what everyone thinks. Including, until yesterday, Aunt Lavinia and myself.”
“Everyone?” Embarrassment flooded Olivia.
“Of course. As Corbright said, you never go about socially anymore. What else is one to believe?”
“That I have been too busy taking care of my business and yours to have time for such? For that is the truth of it!”
“Livvy.” Jason shook his finger at her. “You are not being honest with yourself, much less with me.”
“Oh!” Exasperated, Olivia turned her horse and galloped off, she hardly knew where.
Chapter Nine