by Norah Lofts
He was impervious. He’d lost his heart, and presently his virginity, to such a different woman—a cloud of black hair, great black eyes and bones like a bird’s—and as easily broken. He had then married; sensibly, prosaically, as most men did and that—except for Godfrey—had been a disaster. He had finished with that side of life. He’d known a moment of weakness—and not a pleasant memory at all. Anyway, Joanna was safe at Stordford and by degrees he was paying off his debt to her. He’d never sold a calf or a fattened steer without going along to Master Turnbull’s office and putting half the money into trust; he paid in all that came from the sale of her wool or any sheep marketed. His obligations to his brother Robert—so mysteriously vanished—and his obligations to Joanna, kept him poor. And though everybody thought he was stupid to go on saving up for a lost child, Henry could always fall back upon his own experience. His father had vanished, been deemed dead, and come back.
Lady Grey said, ‘I never quite believed that she was short of twelve when she came here. So very mature. And with such assurance. Well, that means that she will be at least fourteen in the June of next year. I see nothing against a betrothal.’
She wanted Joanna out of the house or at least firmly spoken for. Maude, who had developed tardily, was now marriageable—and who would look at Maude, except to make unfavourable comparisons?
Sir Barnabas’s usually cheerful face had a troubled look and she attributed this to his feeling about the discrepancy in the ages. Men could be very sentimental—where a pretty face was concerned.
‘Not perhaps an ideal match,’ she said with the air of one conceding a point. ‘Not what I should wish for Maude or Beatrice. But compare their families! You were told that she was a girl of good family; she says that her mother was a lady and her father a knight, of Spain. There has never been the slightest evidence of the truth of such a claim.’
‘I’m concerned about the dowry, my dear.’
‘What about it?’
‘I’d counted on it until she became sixteen. Shefton has an eye to money, for all his wealth. And to hand it over now would put me in a muddle.’
‘Oh,’ Lady Grey said and became thoughtful. She understood the running of a household, the management of the estate, but of higher finance, dealings in London and such like she knew nothing. For some reason they never seemed real to her. ‘Leave this to me,’ she said. ‘Tell Lord Shefton that I do not favour the match.’
‘But you just said you did.’
‘Tell him otherwise—but that I am willing to discuss it with him.’
Well, Sir Barnabas thought, he’d never known Gertrude to make a muddle yet, while he seemed to blunder from one to another, and to a man of his nature the words: Leave it to me, were welcome, particularly when they concerned a matter which threatened to be troublesome.
Resolutely, Lady Grey raised every possible objection. Far too young she said; not fourteen until next June and as yet quite unfitted to occupy the position that she would hold as Countess of Shefton. In another two years, perhaps. She flattered his failing virility by a discreet reference to the inadvisability of girls bearing children too young. There were other aspects of the matter. In the course of Nature, barring some catastrophe, the expectation of life in a girl of fourteen exceeded that of a man in his sixties. ‘You have other children, my lord, with prior claims. The poor girl might find herself a widow in straitened circumstances.’ And, after all, she had been consigned to the Greys’ care with a view to her making a suitable marriage. She hoped his lordship would not take offence at her plain-spokenness but she had never been one to take responsibility lightly.
It was an impressive performance but the mention of the girl’s prospects as a widow seemed to offer a shred of hope that if a satisfactory financial settlement could be reached, Lady Grey might be less obdurate over the matter of age. He was a mean man but he was also enormously wealthy; cost meant nothing and he was infatuated by the girl, not only with her looks, which were remarkable enough, but by something else quite undefinable; the nearest he could get to it was a hidden promise; and the thought that even with a sack over her head she’d still be attractive. He proceeded to make promises so lavish—including asking no dowry—that Lady Grey had a wistful thought about Maude; if only he weren’t quite so old; if only his teeth were better…
Outwardly she kept up a pretence at reluctance. All these promises must be set down in proper legal form. And the nearest thing Joanna had in the way of a guardian was the Bishop of Bywater who must, of course, be consulted. It would all take a little time. Perhaps if his lordship cared to keep Christmas at Stordford and came prepared… She herself would do her best to prepare the girl for the high destiny that awaited her.
At Intake, though at a ploughman’s pace, things went forward inexorably.
Father Matthew could not forgive—never would forgive the dreadful insult. He knew that he should; it was a Christian’s duty to forgive, ‘seventy times seven’. And in every Pater Noster one prayed that God should forgive as man forgave man. It was impossible. Every time he looked at Tim, so ugly. No bridge to his nose, wide, almost lipless mouth, eyes with red rims and no lashes, he was reminded of that shocking word. That anybody could possibly think… And since the boy cooked, served, cleaned, tended the pig and the bit of garden he was constantly within view, keeping the wound open like a beggar’s sore. And since one of any man’s needs is self-justification, Father Matthew moved from the effort to forgive the unforgivable to question: Should one forgive evil?
Christ on the Cross had said, ‘Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.’ A plea for forgiveness for the ignorant. But Mistress Captoft was far from ignorant—the very use of the word proved that. Christ on the Cross had promised the dying thief, ‘This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.’ But that man was simply a thief, paying for his crime by dying a dreadful death. There was a difference.
‘As you said, Jem Watson, it is an evil picture. One no decent woman would have stitched upon, no decent man hang upon his wall. And she is an evil woman.’ Having made this statement he felt better, more justified.
Now some idle thoughts—less than that, mere speculations—came drifting up. Put into words for the first time because nobody in Intake was prepared to risk being thought fanciful. A bit of embroidery on an old, accepted tale, a bit of exaggeration here and there was perfectly in order. Any kind of fancy was likely to be dismissed with laughter. But now…What about?
Ah! What about Mistress Tallboys; a young woman, in the best of health one day, in screaming agony the next and dead in a week.
What about Father Benedict; standing up there one day, burying two, and dead the next day.
What about the brews Mistress Captoft made? Bitter and horrible. Bitter as gall, sour as a crab-apple.
One dissident voice. Old Hodgson, really so old that he should be dead, now, but alive and hearty—apart from a bit of stiffness in the joints—a common affliction with all over forty.
‘She make a good brew,’ he said. ‘But for her I’d be dead now. Five days I hadn’t been to the privy and I’d got a lump the size of a millstone, just here.’ He struck the lower part of his belly. ‘I reckoned my time had come and I said to Ted—Go fetch the priest; my last hour is come. So off went Ted at the trot and Mistress Captoft she sent a dose and said try that first. So I did and it shifted. Afore morning light. In the dead dark I got myself to the privy and was there till dawn. Give them all a surprise when I walked into the kitchen, cleared out and as good as new.’
It had given them a surprise; and not a welcome one. His son, Ted, and his wife, Bet, would have been only too glad to have him out of the way; he knew that. Ted wanted Hodgacre for his own and Bet wanted the extra room. Mistress Captoft’s dose had saved his life, for which he was thankful; it had also thwarted their little schemes; almost as important and decidedly more amusing.
Old Ethel said, ‘Them that make good brews can make bad ones too.’
The talk swung
round again to the suddenness with which Mistress Tallboys and Father Benedict had died and the haste with which Mistress Captoft had moved in and begun to rule Knight’s Acre. This time Father Matthew asked his question aloud. What then prevented them from marrying? ‘Could be the money,’ somebody said. ‘Left to her so long as she didn’t marry again. Lotta men put that in their wills.’
It fitted, the priest thought; living in sin for the sake of money. What one would expect of a woman who had stitched that picture and used such language. One day he’d borrow Johnson’s horse and ride to Moyidan and ask Father Thomas what he knew about Mistress Captoft’s circumstances. That errand was delayed; it was almost as difficult to borrow Johnson’s horse as it was to get the glebe ploughed.
Father Thomas said, ‘I really know very little about Mistress Captoft. In fact, I never heard of her, or saw her, until my nephew—your predecessor—came to Intake. She called herself his aunt but I could never trace a direct kinship. Relationship by marriage possibly. I never bothered. Why do you ask?’ Why come to Moyidan on a borrowed horse and disturb an afternoon’s rest? Father Thomas felt rather peevish.
‘I wondered about her money. Whether it is hers or only hers on conditions?’
Father Thomas blinked the sleepiness from his eyes. Widows with money were the Church’s best friends and maybe Mistress Captoft was making a will in favour of the church at Intake which, God knew, needed such an endowment.
‘That I can tell you—at least what Benedict—God rest his soul!— once told me. And I have no reason to doubt his word. He said… Yes, I remember almost his exact words. I ventured to say that I thought she was frivolous and worldly and he said, on the contrary, she was a near saint, burying herself in so remote a place and keeping his house when she was well-to-do in her own right. What her first husband left to her, he left absolutely, without conditions. Had she stayed in Dunwich she could doubtless have married again.’
(Even then, years ago, while Father Benedict was grateful to his uncle for having procured him a living—though a poor one—he had not been able to accept even the most glancing criticisms of Mattie, his love.)
Jogging home on his borrowed horse, Father Matthew thought—Then there is no impediment; except the will of a wicked woman.
There was one bull in Intake—apart from the one at Knight’s Acre—and it belonged to Bert Edgar who, because his father died and his elder brother met with an accident, had inherited all. This bull, a black and very savage beast, served the cows of Intake, Clevely, Nettleton and Muchanger and occasionally those from further afield, since he was known as a good sire. Every year in autumn—cows varied in their seasons, it could be September or October—men would come, leading the meek yet suddenly frisky cows. While the bull was taking the only exercise in his cruelly restricted life, the cow’s owner and Bert Edgar struck the bargain. So much down now, either in cash or kind, and so much more when the cow was visibly in calf. After that Bert had no responsibility; the cow could slip her calf or the calf could be born rump first. None of his business.
This year, instead of bringing the second payments, man after man came with complaints. The Edgarsacre bull had failed.
At first Bert was truculent: ‘You gotta a barren cow, you gotta a barren cow, no good coming here whining to me.’
At the best of times Bert was as ill-tempered as his bull. He’d married Jill, knowing her to be lazy but convinced that given enough stick, she’d improve. He’d wanted one child—a boy to inherit; and he’d got him; but he’d got more. Every year, regular as the changing seasons, pregnant again, growing heavy and useless. Every time, after the first, he’d given her a thorough good thrashing but she wouldn’t learn. Five gaping mouths to feed now. And no second fees to come. And the whole thing a bit of a mystery. Everybody knew that bulls, like all other animals, like people, grew old, grew tame, went unresisting to the butcher or to the bull-ring.
But the black bull was not all that old. Eight years at most, but useless.
Like a witch’s strike!
Everybody in Intake knew about witches and what they could do. Some remembered, handed-along stories, some less remote. All but the very young could remember Granny Robinson who had lived in their midst and been tolerated, partly because she was one of them, partly because in the main her activities had been harmless. She made love potions, brews that got rid of an unwanted pregnancy and she could charm away warts. People had been very careful how they behaved or spoke to her, however, because she could turn very nasty if provoked. Ah! What about her granddaughter who’d married against the old woman’s wishes or advice and, remembering some sharp words, did not invite her grandmother to the wedding.
‘No. I ain’t going,’ Granny Robinson said. ‘And he might as well not go hisself!’ People remembered that remark when the marriage proved to be childless and the girl confided to her mother, in the strictest secrecy, that her husband was useless in bed. In strict confidence meant telling somebody else, after swearing her to secrecy; soon all the village knew. And naturally pleas, even bribes, failed to persuade the old woman to lift the spell, for to do so would have been to admit that she had put it on in the first place. ‘Nothing to do with me,’ she said.
Impotent was not a word used in the village; Bert’s bull was useless; past it; not up to his job.
*
There was a perfectly good bull, young and of surprisingly mild temper, so Jem Watson said, up at Knight’s Acre; but to use him would mean doing business with Master Tallboys and that would go against the grain. Added to the tradition of unfriendliness between the village and house, there was a dislike for Henry personally. He worked just as they did; he wore much the same clothes but he was different. Even in the market. Did he ever greet a man who’d made a specially good bargain with a hearty slap on the shoulders? Did he ever drink a mug of ale in The Hawk In Hand?
The Elders of the village held a meeting to discuss the question of the bull and after much talk decided upon a practical arrangement. Every landowner in Intake, whether he kept a cow or not, would subscribe to the cost of a new animal which would be kept at Edgarsacre because Bert had the experience. Any Intake cow would be served free of charge; those brought from outside would pay fees as usual—the charge to be slightly higher than in the past and to be paid in money. One fifth of this money was to go to Bert Edgar for feeding and managing the bull, the rest was to be divided between the men who kept no cow. A just and sensible arrangement and one which would not be questioned, for in village affairs the Elders’ word was law. Intake had never had a lord of the manor to rule from above but, since some order must be maintained, the men who had hacked their acres out of the forest had reverted, unwittingly, to the fashion of a far older day, of the free settlements of Danish origin. They had chosen seven, the oldest, presumably wisest, men to settle domestic matters. When one died or grew senile, the six remaining chose someone to take his place. Such choice, never openly disputed, had on occasion led to ill-feeling between families; but on the whole it worked.
Old Hodgson, a good hand with a tally stick, was chosen to keep the accounts.
The new bull was bought and installed but a season had been lost; next year there’d be no calves in April or May to romp on the Common or in the meadows; and cheese and butter would have to be bought. Still, the future was provided for.
Then a new disaster struck, beginning at Edgarsacre but threatening the whole community. Jill Edgar, pregnant again and with another black eye, went to feed the pigs; a sow and six young, one destined for home consumption, five for market just before Christmas when young porkers were in great demand. Ordinarily the sow came pushing and grunting at the sight of the swill-bucket but this morning she lay in the corner and did not stir. Jill thought bitterly that there were mornings when she felt like that herself! She took a stick and prodded the animal, alive though listless, with measured ferocity. The sow did not move and emptying the bucket into the trough, at which the young began to guzzle, Jill went back to
the house. She said nothing to Bert; he was not a man who would take a bit of bad news without venting his wrath on the bringer of it; so let him see for himself.
He saw, later in the day, and recognised, in the reddened eyes, the dripping nose, the quick, panting breaths, that curse of all who reared pigs; the dreaded swine fever, as deadly as the plague or the sweating fever was to human beings. And as catching. The last outbreak had occurred before Bert inherited when, second son, he had no expectations but was working as a hired man, up at Knight’s Acre. Then every pig in Intake had died and the year was still remembered—the year we had to buy bacon. Bert remembered it well and presently saw that this disease was different. The sow did not develop the rash of spots around the ears or on the belly; instead she coughed, more like a cow or a steer with the husk than any pig suffering from swine fever. And instead of her innards—and those of the young who promptly sickened—turning to water, this went the other way. Stopped up, blocked up. No mess at all.
He asked advice and his neighbours came, looked, standing well away, and said they had never seen anything like it.
No other pig was afflicted.
Once again the all-stand-together spirit triumphed over old feuds and personal disagreements and the village combined to provide Bert with the start of a new sty-full. Jem Watson’s father sold an in-pig sow for a trifle less than market price. Father Matthew contributed a halfpenny and gave the procedure a decorative touch—in helping an unfortunate neighbour, he said, they were offering thanks to God for sparing their own animals. Most of the men felt sorry for Bert—no bull fees this autumn, no porkers ready for Christmas; five children at table and another on the way! A few women thought it was judgement on him for ill-treating his wife. Though when you came to think of it, it was a queer kind of judgement for she was being punished, too. It had long been the custom at Intake to share when a pig was killed; you have a piece of mine now and I’ll have the same from you, when you kill yours. Jill’s new sow wouldn’t farrow until after Christmas and she’d have nothing to share until well after Easter but you couldn’t stand by the rules at a time like this. They’d share and wait.