The Lonely Furrow

by Norah Lofts

  ‘Oh no, William,’ Mistress Captoft said bravely. ‘Bread must be for the sick, only. But it was a kind thought…’

  She was worried about her ailing guests, some of whom had made such good progress on a diet of fresh herrings, the occasional cabbage and the nettles, and now appeared to be slipping back. They needed more than bread; things like sops-in-wine and good chicken broth.

  There were two places in Bywater from which help might be obtained—the Bishop’s Palace and the inn. Gossip had already informed Mistress Captoft that the Bishop was not an open-handed man. He had withdrawn his support from the two charitable institutions which good old Bishop William had founded. Also, Mistress Captoft had a personal grudge against him—he’d never once paid a visit to Benedict, even when a hunting expedition took him past the church at Intake. The idea of appealing to him for help was repugnant to her. So it must be the inn, where at least she was known.

  She was in her bedroom, dressing for out-of-doors, when her gaze fell upon the collection of little trinkets which the men had made and presented to her. An idea sparked. She remembered that her husband had often said that she had a good head for business. It was worth trying, anyway. She filled her basket with a representative selection of the articles and set off, not to beg humbly for credit but to make a business proposition.

  The landlady of The Welcome To Mariners had a similar good head. In normal times, men straight from the sea with money to spend were the best of the inn’s customers; but there were others; dealers, carters, pedlars. Pedlars! What pedlar would not be glad to acquire a few such unusual, easily portable things?

  ‘How much are you asking, Mistress Captoft?’

  ‘Not money,’ Mistress Captoft said in the easy take-it-or leave-it manner of a first-class bargainer. ‘Once the roads clear I shall have all the money I need. It is just that due to the weather, and the number of men temporarily stranded, and also the fact that I underestimated what I needed, my supplies are running low. I am compelled to barter. For this lot I am asking only a cask of good red wine, a fowl—a boiler would do—this week and next…’ Greed shone in the landlady’s eyes. Wine was not expensive in itself, it was the duty on it which made it costly, and she had a very workable arrangement with the collector of dues; her wine cost her next to nothing. As for fowls, except when cooped for fattening, they cost nothing either; many horses and donkeys in the yard had nosebags and many grains were dropped.

  A flurry of doves passed the window and Mistress Captoft went on, her sentence apparently uninterrupted, ‘and four doves each week for the next month.’

  ‘You drive a hard bargain, Mistress Captoft.’

  ‘If I am asking too much,’ Mistress Captoft said, and made as though to collect what she had displayed.

  ‘But I sympathise with your situation. I agree.’

  They looked into one another’s eyes and understood, just as Dame Isabel and Mistress Captoft had looked and recognised.

  ‘Will there be more?’ the landlady asked, thinking of how, after this lapse, custom would increase.

  ‘Oh yes, I can guarantee a continuous supply. I have, alas, a number of men who will never go to sea again. And they like to be occupied. The poor fellow who made this,’ she touched a necklace of cockle-shells, ‘has only one foot. Far worse than losing a whole leg, for which a wooden stump can be substituted… I will send two men along for the wine; but I would like to take the fowl with me.’

  The landlady rose and shouted an order; then she came back and suggested that she and Mistress Captoft should take a drink together—the usual way of sealing a bargain. Mistress Captoft refused, pleading lack of time. Some sense of honour was left to her and forbade her to drink to a bargain which she was prepared to break at the first possible moment, for even as she sat there making it, another thought had occurred. If these things were saleable in one place, why not in another, only a short distance along the quay? When the time came—as it must, surely it must—when money would buy things, the articles would be sold where they were made. Walking home, light-footed, light-hearted, she planned a kind of shelf, sloping, in the window of her little parlour; it would be covered in velvet—she was prepared to sacrifice a poppy-coloured gown which had not the happiest of associations for her. Against such a glowing background the things would look well.

  Knight’s Acre, cut off from the world, was enjoying a period of happiness and ease from work. Both cows were in calf, so there was no dairy work to bother with. They had casked meat and smoked meat, they had flour. Joanna knew how to make salted meat edible and she could bake. Henry worried a little about Joseph and made one attempt to reach him but the snow was still soft then and he was, like the man making for Stratton Strawless, obliged to turn back. Then the snow froze and upon the surface of it a man could walk. He set off with fresh bread, a whole cheese and more bacon, to find that all his anxiety had been wasted. Joseph had killed the other old tup and so far eaten only the best of it—the kidneys, the liver and a cut or two from the loin. The mangled carcass hung outside his hut, on the side farthest from the sheep-fold, from which a palpable warmth arose; so many woolly bodies in such proximity.

  ‘All in good heart, Master,’ Joseph said proudly. ‘And I give this,’ he looked around at the snow, ‘about another four days.’

  ‘How can you know?’

  ‘There’s a new moon about due. Fickle as women the moon is. Yes, another four-five days’ll see this out. And I shan’t eat half that. Take what you like, Master.’

  ‘All right. If you’re sure, Joseph, I’ll take a leg.’

  As the shepherd hacked away, promising that the frost would have softened the tough meat, Henry looked across at the priest’s house and was aware of—not a responsibility, exactly, but a neighbourly obligation.

  ‘What about Father Matthew and his boy?’

  ‘Alive so far as I know,’ Joseph said, with far less interest than he would have shown in a couple of sheep.

  ‘I’ll take them a bit, too. If you can spare it.’

  Joseph used his knife again, hacking away this time at what was known as the scrag. Not that he had anything against either the priest or the boy. He was just being sensible.

  By this time hunger had shown its ugly face in the priest’s house. The flour and the stripped carcass that remained from the children’s feast had been eked out to the utmost. Lately they had lived on a gruel made from the pig food, a coarse meal known, rightly, as sharps, sharp in the mouth, sharp in the belly. The husks which the swine did eat, Father Matthew thought, remembering the parable of the Prodigal Son. They still had onions but they, though flavourful and healthy, added to the wreck the gruel made of one’s inside. As a result both he and the boy were weak as kittens and for the last few days it had taken their combined efforts to keep a path to the church open. That morning, after a night of frost, it had been more difficult than ever. Feebly, on the verge of collapse, the priest had performed his office, going through the motions, saying the words, but all the time appealing to God in an unusual, personal way, just as he had appealed when faced with the ordeal of the hot iron; but with less strength, less confidence.

  And now here was Master Tallboys with a hunk of fresh meat in his hand. A gift from God. Very welcome, too, was the news that Joseph who considered himself to be weather-wise, predicted a thaw within four or five days.

  To Joanna the news was less pleasing. The thaw would put an end to this enjoyable timeless time, the feeling of being a close family unit, apart from the world. Henry was already talking of finding a woman who could cook, starting the search as soon as he could get to Baildon. When he mentioned this, or indeed anything concerned with the future, Joanna remained silent. Time enough to protest when the moment came. She knew she would never go back to Stordford; she was almost certain that after the way she had behaved, Lady Grey would not wish to have her back unless there was some nonsense about that dowry. But somebody from Stordford was bound to come sooner or later, if only to recover the big
black horse, and then there would be talk and the word betrothal was sure to crop up, and that would put an end to the happy state in which she and Henry had lived for almost a month. She had been determined not to mention the word until he did; and he seemed equally determined not to refer to it. It was a terrible thought but she faced it unflinchingly—Henry did not love her as she loved him. She’d known that in the instant of their meeting. That look of dismay, the question: Did they send you home? She knew perfectly well that had Henry suddenly appeared, say at Stordford, even if he had done a murder and been fleeing from justice with a price on his head, she would have welcomed him very differently. And since that moment, when the joyous welcome had been withheld and only Godfrey had been entirely natural, she had watched Henry carefully. She was more sophisticated, now, and knew that special look which did not necessarily imply friendship or any serious intention; just the hungry, wanting look. (That had also been a matter of preening and giggling amongst Lady Grey’s ladies.)

  Tana, her mother, had believed that love on one side must compel love upon the other and had bedevilled Henry’s father; so sure of herself, so sure that nothing stood between them except his wife, that she’d poisoned Sybilla and thus cleared her own way to nothing, except a man half-crazed by grief, glad to go off to the wars and die. Joanna knew nothing of that old sad story but she knew her own mind. She was prepared—now—to keep their relationship on a friendly basis. She’d made a mistake, once, two years ago in the wood; and perhaps another, later, in making a makeshift betrothal a condition of her going to Stordford. Makeshift as it was, it had saved her from becoming the Countess of Shefton. That was enough for the moment. Let the future take care of itself.

  They played various games. Henry said, quite eagerly, ‘I believe my mother had such toys,’ and went up to look in the bottom of the chest in which Sybilla had kept her clothes—all long ago used by Griselda.

  A box containing a board and all the little mommets for a game called chess; a pack of cards, soiled by much handling and with broken corners; six dice. None used since Knight’s Acre was occupied.

  After supper they had merry games and, with better feeding and the pain not provoked, the lines in Henry’s face faded out. Now and then he laughed as in the old days, coming gloomily from a bad market day, he had laughed when she had set herself, deliberately, to cheer him. Brotherly, not lover-ly.

  The snow had also isolated Stordford and Lord Shefton was restive; longing to get back to his house in the Strand and the lively company of London. He was bored and always easily aware that here at least were two people—Sir Barnabas and his wife—who knew that he had been fobbed off with second best. Being so pleased with the match they were unlikely to say indiscreet things but he was always conscious of their knowledge.

  Maude was young—attempts to deflower her had given him a certain amount of pleasure, not least because it proved his virility—almost. Not that she would ever know the difference! Out of bed she was a bore; too anxious to please; her every remark predictable, her every action intended to please and therefore unpleasing. Even now, she occasionally shot anxious glances at that old termagant, her mother, anxious for approval, fearing its opposite. It was impossible not to think, as snowbound day followed snowbound day, how different that other girl was with her spark of wit, her ready tongue and her curious air of caring for nobody. To have captured her would have been—despite his wealth and position—flattering to his vanity. One had only to look at poor Maude to know that any husband would have done. In fact, Lord Shefton realised, he had committed the juvenile error of marrying on the rebound. In addition, one of his precious new teeth, shallowly rooted or worked too hard, fell out. At the dinner table! Rationally His Grace of Bywater could not be blamed for that; but for every other aspect of this dismal affair he was to blame; and would be punished. Once the snow melted and Lord Shefton was back in London.

  The thaw came suddenly, and floods followed. The drains under the sheep-fold at Knight’s Acre could not deal with the water so Joseph dug ditches, all slanted towards the river, and pushed the straw walls of the pen inwards to give his dear ones something to stand upon while the water drained away. At Intake some houses nearest the river were flooded and some animals died. The only human casualty was old Ethel who, dipping water at the Steps, now invisible under the brown gush, missed her footing and fell.

  Knight’s Acre, standing a little higher (for Sybilla, seeing Sir Godfrey off to choose a site and order a house had made only one request, ‘Let it not be damp, my love,’) did not suffer. It stood high and dry and bathed in a sunset glow, for the exceptional winter was being followed by an exceptionally early and mild spring when Lady Grey’s emissary approached it and thought: What a mean house.

  Chosen for his light weight—a consideration with roads so deep in mire—and because he was young, eager, hoping to be knighted at Easter, Peter Wingfield had been sent to track Joanna down. It had not, except for the mud, been difficult. Lady Grey, dispatching him, had not sounded hopeful; the silly girl had set out on a difficult horse in terrible weather.

  ‘It is unlikely that she survived, Peter, but it is necessary for me to know. And naturally Sir Gervase is anxious about his horse.’

  During his time at Stordford Lady Grey had done little to endear herself to the young squire and now he thought, with disgust: What a typical speech! It was a wonder she hadn’t mentioned the horse first.

  Joanna’s trail was not difficult to follow; many people remembered catching a glimpse of her, so unsuitably clad, so strangely mounted. ‘Went by in a flash. Riding like the Devil was on her heels.’ To some she had spoken, asking direction to a place they’d never heard of. Baildon. At each point where his questions received satisfactory answers, the young man thought: Alive so far! and ploughed on through the mud with rising hope. Because of the heavy going and the need to ask for information, his progress was slow and he was obliged to spend two nights on the way; one at the kind of big house which Joanna had avoided, one at a miserable inn. Where, he wondered, had she spent the night? The nights? In no likely place. Nobody at any great house, any inn or the religious house, knew anything of a bare-headed girl on a big black horse. It looked as though she had feared pursuit. And it would have been difficult to decide even which road she had taken on leaving Stordford but for Lady Agnes’ certainty that she would have made for home. Joanna’s tales had been so vivid and the old woman’s interest had been so keen that she could practically describe the road from Baildon to Intake.

  After a lifetime of fairly decisive action, the poor old woman was now suffering the pains of a mind divided within itself. The way she had been abandoned on that dreadful day was disgraceful: it made her angry to think about it and when she was angry she had every intention of changing her will. Then she would remember those few happy days the services rendered so cheerfully, so different from that of hirelings, and her mood would change. The girl must have had some reason for acting as she had done and Lady Agnes was eager to know what it was. When Lady Grey said, ‘It is not that I want her back. I never wish to set eyes on her again. It is simply that inquiries must be made, for appearances’ sake,’ Lady Agnes said, ‘I should be very glad to see her again, if only to know why she deserted me as she did. After being so kind and looking after me better than I have been looked after since I was forced to take to my bed.’

  It was a back-handed slap and Lady Grey was bound to admit that the girls—as she called them—were far less dutiful than they might have been. There was no need for Maude… and of course the Countess of Shefton could not he commanded; but Beatrice’s future was still not assured. To the watchful mother it often looked as though Sir Gervase were less interested in Beatrice than in ingratiating himself with Lord Shefton. Naturally he gave Beatrice—the daughter of the house—the ordinary, courteous attentions to which the silly girl responded a trifle too eagerly. You could, Lady Grey reflected, train a girl into almost everything except dignity and that, for some obscure rea
son—she never blamed her own handling—both her daughters lacked. Maude was behaving like a stray dog to whom some kind person had given a bone and a casual pat on the head. Mortifying indeed.

  Doggedly making his inquiries, Peter Wingfield came to the point where a man remembered directing a girl on a big black horse towards Bury St. Edmund’s. Apparently at this point she had no longer been riding as though pursued by the Devil.

  ‘They both looked a bit weary-like,’ the man said. ‘But she perked up when I pointed the road to Bury. She smiled. She said. “Thank you. That’ll do,” and set off like a shot. Pretty girl.’

  Baildon. She wouldn’t need to ask direction here and he, thanks to Lady Agnes’ good memory, need only shout, ‘Which way to Intake?’

  And now here he was, thinking what a mean house, for he had been born in a castle, served as a page in another, become a squire at Stordford. He, like so many of his kind, was a younger son, must make his own way in the world, make an advantageous marriage, hope that some legacies might come his way. He was at home in his world and in his world a plain house like Knight’s Acre, stark against the background of leafless woods, was something new. Even the approach raised a question. It had a main door, not unimposing, and a way leading to it between evenly planted rose trees.

  But that path looked unused and there was no light in any window, though the afternoon was darkening now. He decided to take the more worn trail around the side of the house. At the entry of the yard he was challenged by a large dog and from nowhere a boy—about the size Peter had been when he had left home to become a page—ran out and took the dog by the collar, pulling him aside and at the same time offering his own challenge. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ Then a man appeared.