by Nicola Upson
1 June
Took William’s ridin’ boots for mendin’, and was stopp’d at the bottom of the hill by Mrs Martin, who wanted to know what William is doin’ and where he goes and if he talks about Maria. Told her it was not my place to bring that business into the Missis’s house and that William was out most o’ the time seein’ to the farm. Might have added that it was a fine time for her to start bein’ concern’d about Maria, but held my tongue.
All the men are workin’ from daylight to dark at cutten the grass in the lower fields. Took bread and cheese up to Samuel in Hare Field and we drank beer in the sun and smil’d at the cows standin’ in the stream out o’ the heat. The corn looks well and he says it will ripen early if we are bless’d with a month that finishes as it has started. Told him about Mrs Martin. He said that Maria has gone away before without any harm comin’ to her, and I was not to worry.
14 June
Wi’ the men out all day, there are plenty of yard jobs to get on with, as well as my usual work and nursin’ poor John. He is not long for this world. This watchin’ and waitin’ is like a terrible dream night after night, knowin’ what the end will be. It is a wonder the Missis is not mad wi’ the grief of losin’ so much in so short a time.
I have tried to do as Samuel said and not think about Maria, but it is nearly a month since she went away. I ask’d William for an address where I might write to her. He said he c’d do better than give me the address, for he was goin’ to Maria on Saturday and w’d take the letter himself. I have written it, tho’ I c’d not put in all I wanted to say for fear of him readin’ it – but at least Maria will know I am thinkin’ of her.
17 June
William back from Ipswich at ½ past five. Waited for the Missis to go to bed so he might give me the letter from Maria. Still nothin’ by the time I came down from evenin’ prayers, so I ask’d him how Maria was, thinkin’ that might remind him he had somethin’ for me. He told me she has hurt her hand and cannot write, but was pleas’d to hear from me and hopes she will see me soon. It was better than nothin’, but a message is not the same as her own hand and I am no wiser now than I was before I wrote to her.
The excuses that Josephine had thought ridiculous during her conversation with Hilary sounded much more plausible when read in the context of day-to-day life. It was easy to be wise after the event, but why should anyone in that village have suspected the worst at this stage, particularly those who depended on the Corders for their livelihood? The diarist was already in an impossible position and Josephine suspected that it would only get worse for her.
25 June
William off takin’ ewes to market and the Missis corner’d me while I was in the dinin’ room and ask’d me what had happen’d to my friend Maria, because she had heard of her goin’ from the village. For the first time, I was glad that I c’d truthfully say I have not heard from Maria since she left. I hope she does not keep askin’.
6 July
I heard talk o’ Maria in the post office and c’d say nothin’ to defend her. Why does she not write to me? Can she forget me so easily now she has better in her sights? Or is she so used to people wantin’ her out o’ the way that she tars me wi’ the same brush as William and her family? Either way, it does not say much for our friendship. Everyone seems to know somethin’. Maria is in France, she is workin’ up north, she has jilted William, she is wi’ child again. This village will make anythin’ up to suit, but I am her friend and I sh’d know. This frettin’ must stop. If I dwell too long on it, I will begin to hate Maria for her silence, which is a wicked thing to admit and somethin’ I can only say here, where it will never be read.
15 July
Master John was took from us today. Sat with him a while as the Missis ask’d, and remember’d him as he was when he was well and full o’ life and tried to kiss me in the kitchen – then look’d so hurt when I box’d his ears that I let him try again. It seems so long ago. I w’d like to think this is the last piece of sufferin’ for the Missis, but I fear she has a different pain ahead of her. The Martins are set on makin’ William do right by Maria, and he is surely runnin’ out o’ reasons to delay.
18 July
Samuel took me to the Cherry Fair tonight. It was full o’ colour, as it always is, wi’ drinkin’ booths, gingerbread stalls and sideshows, and plenty o’ brandy to go round. How Maria used to love it! We went every year together, and I can hear her now, laughin’ at the learned pigs and fortune-tellin’ ponies, mockin’ the patter of the showmen. I cannot be angry with her any more. We have not been apart like this since we were children, and I miss her, but that is not her fault.
20 July
It rained all the way to the churchyard today, all the way through the service and all the way back. Most o’ the village came out and those who were not mourners stood bare-headed as we walk’d past – showin’ their respect for the Missis’s grief and the tragedy that has been her shadow these last few months. Stood back from the grave while they put him in the ground, thinkin’ how cold and drear it all was, and a line from an old rhyme w’d not go away. ‘We laid ’em along by the churchyard wall, and all in a row we buried them all.’ Please God this is an end to the sorrow.
12 August
William has started seekin’ me out in the house or yard to bring me some bit o’ news from Maria that he has just remembered. He behaves as tho we are sharin’ a secret and I suppose there is no one else he can speak to, but there is no pleasure for me in his words because I only long to hear from Maria. He found me in the scullery and said Maria has bought a new pink dress and he has given her a saucy summer bonnet to go with it. I can only think she is tryin’ hard to please him, because it is a colour she has always hated and c’d never bear to wear.
13 August
Scrubbin’ the hall floor on my hands and knees, when William came downstairs in a hurry and stepp’d over me as tho I was not there. My temper got the better of me for how he thought he c’d treat girls like me and Maria, and I call’d down the hallway after him and ask’d him if he was ever goin’ to marry her. He took his hand out o’ his pocket and I thought he was goin’ to strike me, but he was holdin’ a gold ring. He told me Maria w’d be his wife in a month. I must have shown me doubts, for he said that he c’d not do it before, what with his brothers’ deaths and bringin’ in the harvest, because there were very few reliable men – and that is true. Samuel has been workin’ all the hours God sends. Then he said I w’d see Maria very soon because he was bringin’ her back for Michaelmas, and she and I w’d be able to have a good long talk, and after that I w’d see her every day. Told Samuel what had happen’d and he teas’d me and said I w’d not be so eager to see Maria once she had been my mistress for a few days, but he was pleas’d for me and we pass’d a cheerful evenin’. Six weeks is not long to wait.
18 August
Up at 4 to help get the barn ready for the harvest home. The men set the tables while we women decorated the yard wi’ greenery and coloured ribbons – a picture it look’d, when we were done. At 6 o’clock people were makin’ their way over the fields from all directions. It is a sight I have always loved, the whole village happy and with a common purpose for once – a church o’ sorts, you might say. William took the top table and carv’d the meats, and everyone ate well, knowin’ the barn was full for another year wi’ not a foot o’ bare earth to be seen.
Molly was not best pleas’d when Samuel took her home to bed, so he said she c’d watch from her window a while. William raised a toast to the men, and there were three cheers for him and for the harvest, and he stay’d till the drink run dry and every last man had gone to his bed. Wish’d Maria c’d have been there, but how she will love it next year.
It was a scene that any journalist would have killed for, Josephine thought – but they would never have been able to write it. The power of the image lay in its lack of self-consciousness, and in the horror and grief that the author would feel when she found out what had happened to her fr
iend.
27 August
William furious ’cause two sheep are lost from the top fields. He will not rest until he finds them and he left all hot and bother’d to see the constable. Clean’d his room while he was out, as I did not want to get under his feet with him in such a temper. Found a letter ½ written under his blotter, and look’d in case it was to Maria and show’d her address. It was to Mr Matthews, and it said that Maria has been stayin’ with a distant relation of William’s, which was not exactly what he told her family nor me but perhaps she has moved on. He wrote that she will be his bride as soon as he has settled his family affairs, and until then she prefers to stay with his kindred. Mr Matthews might be fool enough to believe that, but I am not. Maria w’d never choose to be with strangers over her son, and I wish now that I had never look’d at the letter. I am more worried than ever about her, but I do not know what to do except wait and hope.
William’s deceit was beginning to catch up with him, and Josephine wondered how much longer he would stay in the village; it would have been much wiser to decide on a lie and stick to it.
Outside, she thought she heard the latch on the front gate. She looked at her watch. Half past twelve. Far too late for visitors, but she listened anyway for a knock at the door. There was nothing and she resumed her reading, but the noise came again, more definite this time. She stood up, unable to concentrate, and took a lamp over to the front door to look outside. The light shone dimly onto the path. The gate was open, blown back and forth by a rising wind that blew uninterrupted across the fields in front of the cottage, and she heard the latch clatter again as the wood hit its post. Relieved, she went out to fasten it, but when she reached the hedge she could hear footsteps along the wooden bridge that crossed the pond. They were moving away from her, off into the woods, and the sound faded so quickly that she questioned whether or not they had been real. She went a few yards down the track and called out, but the only answer was the scream of some small creature set upon in the shadows, and she was too frightened to venture any further. The mystery and seclusion of the woods were even more forbidding than the open darkness of the fields, and she retreated to the cottage before anything else could conspire with her imagination. A gust of wind took the door out of her hand and blew it firmly shut behind her, as if the cottage had decided that what went on inside its walls was no one else’s business, and Josephine was happy to defer to it. She stood in the kitchen, listening to the rose tapping against the glass through the open scullery door; as a child, she had loved nothing better than to lie in bed at night and listen to the wind and rain outside, but she was not a child now and an unquestioning trust in her own safety was no longer a luxury that she enjoyed. Unnerved, she closed the scullery door so that nothing from that end of the house could encroach upon her thoughts, and went back to the study, grateful for the packet of cigarettes that Marta had left behind.
4 September
How I used to love this time o’ night, when the house was quiet and it was just me and my thoughts. Now they are no comfort. What is terrible enough to keep Maria away, stronger even than her love for that little boy? Is she expectin’ William’s child again and frighten’d of what might happen to her? Is she shut away somewhere, out of her wits wi’ grief? Is that why the Martins have let her go so easily – a shame even greater than the last?
William complains of bein’ feverish, and fears he is goin’ the same way as his brothers. God forgive me for what I feel in my heart about that, but I am not asham’d of it. Perhaps if he were dead, Maria c’d be home where she belongs wi’ the people who w’d love her and look after her.
8 September
William has gone. He left today to go to the sea for his health, and Pryke took him to Colchester to catch the coach. I carried his bags out to the cart, hopin’ to have a chance to ask him if he is goin’ to Maria, but he w’d not look at me. Now there is just me and the Missis, and I feel as tho’ my last hope of seein’ Maria has left wi’ William.
29 September
Michaelmas. This was suppos’d to be a happy day, and I am angry wi’ myself for believin’ that William w’d ever bring Maria back here. I was a fool to listen to his promises. He must be laughin’ at us both, wherever he is. I take his letters up to the Missis when they come, and they never bear the same mark twice. She reads them quickly – never more than a single sheet – and I can tell by her face that they bring no real news.
25 October
The village is full o’ rumours again today. Pryke told someone about the last talk he had wi’ William, and he said that he had not seen Maria since May. I do not know what to think. Lies have always come easy to William, but why would he say that when it goes against all he has led us to believe?
Went to see Mrs Martin this afternoon to tell her what I had heard, but she said it was idle tittle-tattle. She said she had a letter which proved different and my heart lifted until I saw it was from William and not Maria. He says that Maria is now his wife, and she sends a kiss to Thomas Henry and asks that her clothes be given to her sister as she has new ones. Mrs Martin look’d at me as tho’ the words proved me to be a fool, but they have only worried me more. Maria loves her clothes far more than her sister. They have been at odds since their mother’s death, and the finest new clothes w’d not persuade Maria to have Nan dress’d up in what is rightly hers. I know somethin’ is wrong, but if Maria’s family will not listen to me, who will?
The diary continued in the same vein for the next few weeks, a mixture of frustration and anger and despair as the writer noticed more contradictions in the stories of what had happened to her friend. By the end of the year, Josephine saw that she had begun to give up hope.
20 December
The snow has been comin’ down hard for two days, and the village is cut off from the world. There are deep drifts everywhere, and Samuel help’d the shepherd dig the sheep out and make a path for them to the yards.
It is strange to have so much light at night with the moon shinin’ on the snow, and yet for the days to be dark and dull in the house wi’ drifts up against the windows. Everywhere looks so different, and it is easy to let my imagination get the better of me. A dreadful fear has taken me over these last few weeks. When I am quiet and alone like this I cannot hide from it. I have thought up so many reasons for Maria’s silence, but I am afraid that none of them is as terrible as the truth I do not know. I am done with hopin’ and prayin’, because I feel certain in these dark moments that I will never see my friend again.
26 December
Went to see Samuel after dinner and it took me a long time to get to the cottage wi’ the paths deep in mud after the snow and I need not have bother’d to look nice. Molly c’d not wait to show me the little decorations she had made for me and the room was warm and pretty with holly and a cloth on the table. It was all so cheerful and homely that I c’d have cried wi’ happiness.
We had the food that I took wi’ me, all proper Christmas fare, and Samuel gave me some honey wine that Hannah had sent. Later, when Molly was asleep, he ask’d me why I have been so sad of late, and I do not know if it was the wine or his kindness but I found myself tellin’ him all I fear’d most about Maria. He put his arms around me and said it is not good for me to be on my own in that house with all the darkness and w’d I not rather be here in the firelight with him and Molly? I did not answer him at first for fear of not understandin’ what he was askin’, but he kept on talkin’, sayin’ that William bein’ away has given him more to do on the farm and the Missis is good to him and pays him a fair wage, and Molly loves me as her own mother and that he w’d like to love me as a husband and be with me all my days, if I c’d ever think of Red Barn Cottage as my home. And I knew then that I already do.
How I long to be tellin’ Maria my news rather than writin’ it down. I know she w’d hug me and laugh and tease Samuel for takin’ so long to ask. But I will not feel guilty for being happy, not after all this time.
How short-lived th
at happiness would be, Josephine thought sadly; there was still so much horror and tragedy to come. She was tired now, but she could not think of putting the diary down until she had finished it, and neither did she want to lie awake upstairs in the darkness, listening for sounds outside. She went through to the kitchen to make some tea and closed her eyes while she waited for the kettle to boil, picturing the scene she had just read taking place in this very room. If the marriage went ahead, the writer would come to live at Red Barn Cottage, and she wondered if Hester had actually found the diaries somewhere on the premises; she had always assumed them to be another shady purchase with no questions asked, but perhaps not; perhaps Hester really had been the first person to read them other than their author, in which case her discovery was so much richer. She took her tea through to the study and picked up the final year.
Tuesday 1 January, 1828