Convenient Marriage

by Ling, Maria

  "You should have told me the truth."

  "I couldn't risk it. I was afraid you'd refuse me. If you did, I would lose all of this. Mother would have to go into some poky attic room with Mary, and scrimp for what pickings they could mending clothes for better folk, and I'd seek work as a labourer - if I didn't land in the debtor's prison first. But it wasn't about that, in the end. It was this - " he made a sweeping gesture with his hand, taking in the fields and the barns and the grim clouds - "that I wanted to save. The farm. My family have lived here for three hundred years. I couldn't be the one to lose it all."

  "So you lied to me," Eliza said. "And to my father."

  "I exaggerated," Edward said. "If either of you had demanded to know the exact truth, I would have told you."

  "You mean to say it's our own fault?"

  "Never that." He took her hand, warm fingers on her own, but she snatched it away. "What I mean to say is that I could not have looked either of you in the face and told a straight lie. I don't imagine that will make you think better of me, because the result for you was the same. But now that we are married, and the worst danger has passed, I want you to know that I will be truthful to you."

  Eliza stared at him. He bore it with a steady gaze.

  "What are your debts?" she asked.

  "Come to the study." Edward held out his hand, and this time she let him take hers. "I will show you."

  ***

  Eliza pored over the accounts. She could see the steady profit from grain and butter sales, the punctual rents from the tenant farmers, the healthy yields from the kitchen garden. Then there were expenses. Mary's low wage surprised her: in town, it would not be enough to keep a new young maid, let alone one as experienced as this. Seasonal labour varied a little from year to year, depending on the harvest, but it tracked the sales figures well. Then there was "Family", which made her gasp.

  "Where is all this money going?" She threw an accusing stare at Edward. No one in her own home - her former home, she corrected herself - would be so profligate.

  Without a word, Edward handed her another, smaller, account book.

  William. Mess expenses, personal allowance, sundry. Henrietta - almost nothing for the past year, then a sudden sharp increase in early April.

  "Dowry." Edward didn't wait for her to ask. "It was the least I could do."

  Mother. A steady run of monthly entries, far too high for mere board. And Father, higher still right up until February, after which a black line finished that part of the business.

  "Apothecary bills," Edward said.

  A final column, headed in new black ink, with no entries as yet. Mortgage.

  Eliza glanced up. "You've mortgaged the farm?"

  "For half its value. Look over the page."

  Edward. Expenses at home, expenses at York. She recognised the name of a disreputable inn.

  "You've stayed there?"

  "It's cheap."

  She couldn't ask him if there were other, more intimate, reasons. She dared not. He might tell her the truth.

  Eliza flicked back a page.

  "William's expenses were low in April," she observed. "His personal allowance reduced, and 'sundry' is almost nil."

  "He's promised to keep things that way."

  "What is under 'sundry'?"

  "That's personal." He took the account book away from her. Eliza frowned up at him.

  "I don't understand."

  "Will doesn't care for cheap inns," Edward said. "He prefers other arrangements. Personal arrangements. The matter is closed."

  In a flash she understood, and her cheeks burned.

  "March was your worst month." She strove to focus on the matter in hand. "April was better. If things stay that way, or even improve, and if the summer goes well, you could be clear of debt by next year."

  "That is my hope." He regarded her for a while. "You made those calculations in your head?"

  "Mother and I used to do the accounts for Father. I can make an estimate as well as you."

  "It would take me twice as long," Edward said. "And if I hadn't seen the figures before, I'd need pen and paper to do it."

  Eliza shrugged. Her unfeminine head for figures had been a great worry to her when she began to think of marriage. With Edward, she had forgotten about that.

  She peered at him. He seemed more pleased than otherwise, and not at all disgusted by such a masculine quality in a wife.

  "If you want to do the farm accounts," Edward said, "by all means feel at liberty. It will give me more time to market our produce."

  Eliza blinked. If he had suggested that she don man's clothes and take up cockfighting, she could not have been more surprised.

  "It wouldn't offend you?" she asked.

  "Quite the opposite. I'd already thought of hiring a clerk, but it's too expensive. If you're willing to do the work, I'd be more than grateful."

  "You don't find it unwomanly?"

  "Not in the least."

  They stared at each other.

  "I think," Edward said, "that you may find we have a lot in common."

  "I think," Eliza said, "that you may be right."

  ***

  Evening sun slanted through the window and created a magical glow in the whitewashed walls. Eliza paused to look out across the fields. The view exuded serenity, a deep rich peace that echoed in her heart.

  She drew the faded drapes together. Twilight smothered the room.

  Edward remained downstairs. He would be up in a moment, he said. It was, she guessed, his tactful way of allowing her privacy to wash and undress.

  She pulled a fresh chemise from her trunk. Three of them she'd made, each of fine white linen with an embroidery of rosebuds. Other new dresses waited below: two morning gowns and an evening gown of peach muslin that she'd hired a seamstress to make. Now she wished she'd saved the money. Edward needed cash, not a well-dressed bride, and she could have brought him enough for a month's apothecary bills.

  He should have told her. He should have trusted her. She wouldn't have refused him on such paltry grounds.

  Would she?

  Eliza slumped onto the bed. She had danced with him, and talked to him, and loved his good manners and caring smile. When he touched her, she thrilled. But she might have done the same with any man, if he were clean and presentable and rumoured to be rich.

  No. She flung the nasty suspicion aside. What she felt for Edward, she could never have felt for another man.

  In which case, it ought not to matter that he was poor.

  It didn't. What mattered was that he'd lied.

  Now he was her husband. He could come to her in a moment, and they would share this bed together, and they would never again be apart.

  The idea frightened her.

  She washed her face and hands, put on the chemise, and tucked herself between the sheets. And waited.

  Edward trod up the stairs, slow as the approach of thunder. Eliza clenched the edge of the blanket in her hands. Her nerves tingled all through her body.

  "Comfortable?" He didn't quite meet her eyes. She shivered as he removed his shirt, broad back catching the dim light from behind the curtains.

  She slid down under the blanket to avoid seeing him remove his trousers. Now that the moment had come, she grew cold with fear.

  Edward's weight shifted the mattress and tilted her towards him.

  "Considering everything," he said, "I think we'd be wise to sleep."

  Eliza's head twitched around. She was too startled to think.

  "Sleep?" she said. "Aren't we supposed to - " She broke off. It was impossible to shape such words, although her mother's information had been quite explicit.

  "Well, yes," Edward said. "We are. In time. But I am in no hurry, if you are disinclined."

  She wasn't. Not with him. But she couldn't bring herself to say that either.

  Eliza raised herself on her elbow, just enough to see his face. He'd closed his eyes, straight lashes clamped down on tanned cheeks. The skin
of his eye-sockets glowed pale, tinged with blue. His jaw glistened with pinprick bristles that caught the dim golden light. Firm lips pressed together, as if they kept in some dark unspoken secret, and from the corners of his mouth jutted narrow folds.

  He looked exhausted. As if he'd carried a burden of lead weights for so long that he'd forgotten they were there.

  "Goodnight," Eliza said.

  The corners of his mouth shifted, turned upward in a smile, and the folds vanished. He didn't open his eyes.

  "Goodnight."

  She lay still and watched him, while his breathing slowed and the muscles of his face relaxed, until he looked like a man ten years younger. When she was quite certain he was asleep, she leaned over to rest a gentle kiss on his lips.

  ***

  "Jerseys?" Edward repeated.

  He sat across from her at the mottled dining table, gripped a slice of buttered bread in one hand, and stared as if she'd suggested he buy the moon.

  "They give exceptional milk," Eliza said. "And plenty of it. I've read about them."

  "In the first place," Edward said, "I do not take instruction on herd management from you. In the second place, I have no money to buy new stock. In the third place, there are no Jerseys at market here. In the fourth place, they are said to be half the size of a real cow. That means they'll yield half the milk."

  "They're only a little smaller," Eliza said. "And they yield no less than the larger breeds."

  "Impossible."

  "I could ask Father to buy me one," Eliza said. "As a gift."

  "If you want presents, you will ask me." Edward scowled at her.

  "And you'll say no," Eliza pointed out. "Which is very reasonable, since we don't have the cash. But Father would like to buy me something. He said so."

  "And you declined?"

  "I asked for books." Eliza flushed at the memory. "He refused."

  "On what grounds?"

  "Said I already spent too much time reading."

  Edward bit into his bread. He took so long to chew it that Eliza had finished hers by the time he spoke.

  "You may have the money from me," he said.

  ***

  She was beautiful. A small sugar-brown cow with mild eyes, who studied the yard for several moments and then turned back to nuzzle Eliza's sleeve.

  "She's in calf," Edward said. "Early. Won't need to be served for the next year or so."

  "Served?" Eliza repeated, her mind blank. He surely wasn't proposing to eat this dear creature.

  Edward grinned.

  "Town miss. Never mind." He stroked the cow's forehead with his fingers. She shut her eyes and leaned heavy on Eliza's arm. "I'll show you how to milk her. Don't expect much - she's had a long trip, and she's young. You'll learn together."

  Eliza reached across with her free hand and gave the cow's ear a tentative stroke. It flicked and then was still.

  "She's lovely."

  "I wrote for a pretty one," Edward said. "To match my wife. Not sure it went down too well."

  Eliza laughed aloud. The cow's eyes opened in surprise.

  "Here." Edward strode off to the byre and returned with a low stool and a bowl. "Try her now. I'll hold her." He looped his fingers around the bridle and waited.

  Eliza slid onto the stool. She pushed the bowl under the cow's udder and tried to find a sensible position that let her reach for the teats without spurting milk onto her skirt. She had seen a painting of a dairymaid once, where it all looked so simple. Reality, in the shape of warm cowhide and hard wooden stool edge, was very different.

  She slipped her fingers around two of the teats and gave a tentative squeeze. Nothing happened.

  "Just keep trying," Edward said. "Be gentle but firm, and stroke more than squeeze. Let her get used to you."

  Eliza leaned her cheek against the flank of the cow. She let her hands find a steady comfortable rhythm in which to work. After a few minutes, a trickle of hot milk trailed between her fingers. The drops spattered loud into the bowl. After that, nothing.

  "That will do," Edward said a few minutes later. "If she had more to give, she would. No sense in distressing her."

  Eliza licked milk off her fingers. It tasted like hot sweet cream.

  "It's delicious," she said.

  "Good. You two can provide for our table, then, and I'll put the full herd yield for sale."

  Eliza waited for a smile. None came.

  "You're serious?" she asked.

  "Completely," Edward said. "You wanted a Jersey cow, she's yours. Together, you and she will pay me back what it cost me. That's farming. You may as well learn it now as later."

  "Investment and return." She understood that, from what she knew of Father's business.

  "If you like."

  Eliza wiped her hands on her dress, and only then remembered it was new.

  "We'll do our best," she said and stroked the warm brown hide. "Won't we, love?"

  ***

  Eliza poured out the spoonful of medicine with a steady hand. The apothecary had left precise instructions, and she had only to follow them.

  Caring for Edward's mother presented no difficulty. Mary did all the heavy work. Eliza made the bed, fluffed up the pillows, and carried the bedpan downstairs. Twice a day, morning and afternoon, she read for half an hour from a book of sermons, then spend a further quarter hour or so in cosy chat about her life in York.

  She regarded the work with delight. Never in her life had she felt so useful, so needed, and made such great difference with such small actions.

  "Here." She fed the liquid to Mrs Dean as she would to a child, with a slow tilt of the spoon so that no drop would escape. The old woman lay stiff with pain. Eliza put the spoon down, then knelt beside the bed and offered silent prayer. It tormented her to see a woman suffer so.

  At their first encounter, Eliza had thought Mrs Dean ancient. In truth she was no older than Eliza's own mother. It was the pain alone that aged her. Now, as the potion took effect, her muscles relaxed, her body untwisted, her wrinkles smoothed.

  Eliza offered a last prayer of thanksgiving, then reached for Mrs Dean's hand. She had learned never to touch her during the worst of the pain.

  "Can I get you anything else?" Eliza asked.

  "Just water, dear."

  Eliza helped Mrs Dean sit up, then held the glass of water for her while she drank.

  "Mary said she would bring you some buttered toast." They pursued this ritual every morning, though half the bread came back uneaten.

  Mrs Dean patted the coverlet. Eliza sat down next to her and reached for the book.

  "Tell me, dear," Mrs Dean said. "What is the matter with Edward? I know something has weighed on his mind these past few months. He won't tell me, of course. But you can. You've already helped to ease it. He's been so different since you came."

  "He worries about you," Eliza said. "And he grieves for his father."

  "Are you sure that is all?" Mrs Dean turned mild brown eyes on Eliza. "He tells me everything is well with him and William and Henrietta, and with Mary, and with the farm. Is that the truth?"

  Eliza hesitated. But the farm would do fine, now that he had her money at his back.

  "It's the truth." She infused her words with certainty.

  Mrs Dean's wrinkled lips relaxed into a smile.

  "Thank you," she said. "You have taken away the last of my fears."

  ***

  Eliza hurried around to the front yard. She had heard the clatter of hooves and the creak of cart wheels that meant Edward's return from the back fields. By the sound of it, he was in a hurry. She hoped that didn't mean bad news.

  The blisters on her hands stung. She'd churned butter that morning, her first attempt. A round golden pat now adorned the kitchen table, fussed over by Mary, ready for dinner at noon.

  Eliza rounded the corner of the house and stopped sharp. A carriage rolled down the lane - not Edward's cart, but a hired carriage like the one that had brought her here on her wedding day. The i
mpression of speed was a trick of her ears. She hadn't expected two sets of hooves.

  She stepped into the house and hurried upstairs. The lone mirror on the bedroom wall told a sad tale of frazzled hair and pink skin. Nothing to be done about that now. Eliza rinsed and dried her hands, then stepped across the landing to Mrs Dean's room.

  "There is company on the way," Eliza said. "Are you expecting someone?"

  Mrs Dean shook her head in consternation. She sat in a faded armchair by the window, where she could look out over the fields while she sewed. The breakfast tray stood on the corner of the bed. Eliza picked it up and scolded herself in thought. She had promised Mary to take it downstairs, and had forgotten.

  Still, it was good to see the empty crumb-strewn plate. Edward's mother might never be well again, but she had at least regained her appetite.

  "It must be your parents," Mrs Dean suggested. "Didn't they write to say they'd be coming?"

  "Next week," Eliza reminded her.

  "That was a week ago, dear."

  Was it? Eliza blinked at her, startled. The days shot by here, filled with work.

  A knock on the front door echoed through the house. Eliza gathered up her skirts in one hand, carried the tray in the other, and ran down the stairs.

  "One moment." She edged the door open with her elbow, and smiled in welcome.

  "There appears to have been a mistake," her father said with a frown. "I asked the coachman to take us to Edward Dean's house. Could you direct me there, girl?"

  "It's me," Eliza said. The tray wobbled, and her fingers ached from the weight of it. She clutched it with her other hand and managed to achieve a steady grip.

  "I beg your pardon?" her father snapped.

  "It's me," Eliza said. She wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but sudden tears started to her eyes. For a moment she saw herself as she appeared to him, a grubby servant-girl with unkempt hair. "I'm your daughter. Good morning, Father."

  "Eliza?" He stared at her in naked disbelief. "My God, what have they done to you? Come away at once. We'll take you home in the carriage. You can talk on the way."

  Eliza drew a shaking breath. She wished Edward was here.

  "This is my home," she said. "I have no intention of leaving. Do come inside, and bring Mother as well. Mrs Dean is upstairs. She'd be glad if you called on her. I have to run to the kitchen - excuse me." She hurried off before he could stop her.