by Ann Swinfen
‘How can it be?’ I said. ‘Who is to marry us?’
‘Perhaps that little fat parson will come back. What was he called?’
‘Apsley. He ran away for fear of floods, long before there was sign of any.’
‘Aye, he did. I do not suppose he will return. Gideon must know other parsons.’
‘If they keep to Queen Elizabeth’s church, they will have lost their places, like Gideon. And I will not be married by a ranting Puritan, who will tell me that I am already damned. Besides–’ It was my turn to hesitate. I fastened my cloak about my shoulders.
‘Aye?’
I realised the colour had mounted to my cheeks. ‘I cannot say to him straight out, that I want to be married at once.’
‘Indeed you may.’ Alice was her usual brisk, practical self. ‘And if you do not, I shall.’
‘Alice!’
‘Fear not. I shall be very discreet. I shall drop a little word in his ear about impropriety.’
‘You must not!’
‘I shall keep a watch on you, Mercy. If I find you have said nothing to the point, I shall feel I must preserve your good name.’
I was unsure just how serious she was, but Alice could be very determined, once an idea had taken hold. I realised I might need to say some word to Gideon, for fear of what she might do. Now, though, I stepped out into the cold, pulled my hood over my head, and went to see how the men were faring in the yard.
It was another three days before we judged it practical to move my mother back to Turbary Holm. The lane had dried, although snow still spread over much of the land. The ground which normally lay above the winter floods was now free of standing water, though very boggy in places, while the fields which normally flooded were still under water, like the barley field where the settlers had built and the medland through which the drainers had cut the ditch leading to their pumping mill. There was some hope that the flood would have broken down the banks of that misjudged new ditch and filled it in, at least partially.
The day before we moved, Nehemiah, Jack and the young soldier Ben drove our cattle back to the farm, with the aid of our dog Jacob. Ben, who was a boy of just fifteen, was beginning to show a liking for farming. The soldier who had drowned, George Lowe, had been a farmer before he was pressed into the army and Ben had clearly admired him. He could not stay permanently on the farm, however. Once orders came through for the soldiers, no doubt he would be snatched away. When the cows were settled, Nehemiah and Ben would stay to milk them. Nehemiah would sleep in the house and have good fires going to warm it throughout before my mother arrived. Ben offered to sleep in the hay loft.
‘Nonsense!’ I said. ‘It will be much too cold. You may sleep in the room off the kitchen tonight.’ I had washed and dried the dirty bedding. The room was clean and fresh again.
At that moment I realised that our five remaining soldiers would expect to move back to the farm with us, for they had been billeted there. So much for Alice’s fear that I should be unchaperoned.
Over the past weeks a small group of us had somehow become the leaders of the community, deciding which houses should be repaired first, which of the elderly and the children should be found homes away from the discomfort of the church. That evening we gathered again in the vestry, sitting around the table – Gideon and I, Alice and Rafe, Jack, Will, and Toby, and Hans and Griet Leiden. Gideon also asked Seth, one of the most senior of the soldiers, to join us as well.
‘Many will be moving out of the church tomorrow,’ Gideon said. ‘Mercy’s family is returning to Turbary Holm, and Alice and Rafe are to move in with Jack. The families from the three lost cottages down by the stream have found shelter for the moment in other houses, and so have two of the Dutch families, but the rest of your countrymen,’ he bowed his head toward Hans, ‘have still nowhere to go. Then there are all the soldiers billeted among us. Any spare rooms they occupied before the flood are now taken up by the needy. So we must think what to do.’
‘Our five soldiers may return with us to the farm,’ I said. ‘Their attic is now free of chickens.’ I smiled at Seth, who grinned back. He had heard the tale of the hens’ droppings.
‘As for the rest of our men,’ Seth said, ‘they can stay here in the church for now. It is better than a tent in camp, or a rough bivouac under a bush in a field.’
‘Aye, I think they might do that,’ Gideon agreed. ‘Sometime soon I expect a new rector will be sent to us, but until that happens, they should stay here. The greater problem is the settler families.’
Hans and Griet exchanged a look, but seemed at a loss what to say. Before they could speak, I cut in.
‘Clearly they have nowhere to go at present,’ I said, ‘other than here in the church, and I think few have the coin to pay their fare home to the Low Countries. It is the middle of winter and there are many children amongst them. How can we call ourselves good Christians if we do not find a home for them amongst us? For one, I am happy for Hans and Griet and their children to stay at Turbary Holm with us. They may sleep in Kitty’s attic, while she shares with me.’
Hans opened his mouth as if to speak, but I forestalled him.
‘The incomers have all worked hard to repair our houses and barns, to clear them of filth and make them habitable. The men are good builders, even though the settlement they built has been washed away.’
At this Hans looked uncomfortable, no doubt at the thought that they had built illegally on our land, but we too had reasons for guilt, having done our best to destroy their homes.
‘I think we should allow them to build here in the village,’ I said. ‘All this is common land, whatever the speculators may say. It must be a decision of the whole village, of course, whether we will allow them to build here. Here, but not on our farmland.’
Gideon smiled at me across the table. ‘You are running ahead of me, Mercy. This is what I planned to suggest myself.’
‘Where the road runs on past the Coxes’ house and Will’s smithy,’ Toby said, ‘on the way to the hay meadow and the medland. There is a stretch there which is high enough not to flood in the normal way of things.’
‘Aye,’ Jack said. ‘It’s a patch of poor soil and gravel, no good for cultivation. Widow Peterson and the two other cottagers from by the delph – they hope to build there. There would be room for houses on both sides of the road.’ He turned to Hans. ‘You are eight families. You could build five houses on one side of the road, three on the other, next to the three cottagers.’
The Dutch couple were gaping at us, amazed. It seemed they could not believe we would let them build in our village, after their trespass on our land and the ruin of much of our barley crop.
‘We are so grateful,’ Griet said, and there were tears in her eyes, ‘that you should allow us to stay. But we must work. We must earn our bread.’
Hans cleared his throat. ‘In our country we make a new way to grow vegetables. We grow them very close, very big.’ He made extravagant gestures with his hands. ‘We can sell to market. To Peterborough, not so?’ He broke off and spoke to Griet in Dutch.
‘My husband says, it will be several months before we can sell our vegetables and earn money, but if you will let us have a piece of land, where we can grow for market . . . I do not know how we shall live until then.’
‘I am sure we can find a way,’ Gideon said. ‘But we must have the agreement of all the village that you may stay.’
‘Call a meeting tomorrow morning,’ said Will. ‘The sooner started, the sooner done. And I know there is a blacksmith amongst you. There will be a need for tools and nails and cooking pots. He can earn his bread with me, for one, and with my cousin Abel.’
The following morning, all the adults of the village gathered once again in the church, where Gideon put to them the proposition we had discussed. Before our shared misery during the flood, I am sure the village would have rejected it out of hand, but matters were different now. There were a few grumbles, but when Hans said that he and his fellows
would build the three cottages for the villagers first, those grumbles were soon forgotten. The whole village agreed that the Dutchmen should be allowed to settle amongst us. They would be given a patch of land on which to grow their vegetables. A small patch, to start with, but if they proved successful, they might be allowed more.
When the others had left us, I turned to Gideon.
‘I need to speak to you,’ I said, and felt the blood rushing to my cheeks. ‘Let us go into the vestry.’
He closed the vestry door and we sat down, facing each other across the table. He reached out and took both my hands in his.
‘What is it, my love? What is worrying you?’
I fixed my eyes on our joined hands, so that I need not meet his eyes.
‘Alice has been speaking nonsense to me,’ I said.
‘Alice? Alice is one of the most sensible women I know. What is this nonsense?’
‘Tomorrow we all move back to the farm.’
‘Aye. And high time too, to pick up the threads of our life.’
‘Alice says – she says – she thinks there will be talk if we are living in the same house before we are married.’ I spoke in a rush, to get the words off my tongue and out in the open. ‘I said it was foolishness. She said I would be unchaperoned, but beside my mother and Kitty and Nehemiah there will be the five soldiers living with us. I would not have repeated her nonsense, but that she threatened to speak to you herself.’
He began to laugh softly, and ran his thumb over the back of my hand.
‘Do you want me to stay in the village? I am sure I could sleep in a corner of Will’s smithy, or Jack could find me space in his hay loft.’
‘Nay!’ I looked up to see whether he was teasing me. He was smiling, but I was not sure whether or not he was serious. ‘Nay, I need your help on the farm. And besides–’
‘Aye?’
‘I want you near me.’ I pressed his hands with mine and he leaned forward over the table and kissed me.
‘There is a very simple answer to the problem,’ he said.
‘Is there?’
‘Let us be married at once.’
I felt my colour rising again.
‘How can that be? Who is to marry us?’
‘You do not care for our friend from Crowthorne, the Reverend Edgemont?’
‘Gideon! That prattling Puritan!’
He laughed. ‘Perhaps not. But I have other friends in the church, though they may not be easy to find. Many have gone into hiding. Others have left the country. Nevertheless, I am sure I can find someone, even if it means riding to Oxford.’
‘That might not be safe, if the fighting breaks out again between here and Oxford. Is it in Royalist hands now?’
He shook his head. ‘I cannot tell. It used to be the King’s centre of power, but we have been so cut off here that I have not heard if that is still true. It may be that it is in Parliamentary hands now. But I should travel as a simple civilian, no threat to anyone.’
I tightened my grip on his hands. ‘I fear it would be dangerous.’
‘Well, there is no need to decide yet. Let us move your mother back to Turbary Holm and set all in order there. Then we will discuss this again.’ He grinned. ‘For my own part, the sooner we are married, the happier I shall be.’ He kissed me again.
‘We must go,’ I said, feeling confused. ‘Everyone will be wondering–’
‘Do you want me to come and live at the farm tomorrow?’
‘Of course,’ I said firmly.
The next morning Gideon mounted upon Blaze and Jack lifted up my mother to ride pillion behind him. Because we feared that she might not grip him firmly enough about the waist, risking a fall, we passed a long strap around both their waists to keep her safe. Kitty, Nehemiah and I walked behind them, carrying our few possessions tied up in bundles, and Alice’s mother came with us, for she felt her familiar face might help to keep my mother calm. The soldiers and Hans were to spend the day helping to dig foundations for two of the new cottages and would follow in the evening, though two of the Dutchmen were to help with the final repairs to our barn. Griet would bring her children some time in the afternoon, once my mother had time to grow accustomed to being back at the farm.
It was all planned carefully. However, because of my mother’s unpredictable moods, I was unsure whether she would settle so easily. As we made our way along the lane, I saw how frightened she seemed, staring about wildly and calling out, ‘Isaac? Isaac, where are you?’
It near broke my heart that she still believed that my father was alive. They were cousins and had known each other all their lives.
Once we reached the house, Gideon and Nehemiah between them lifted her down from the horse and Mistress Morton put her arm around my mother’s shoulders.
‘Come, Abigail, let us go inside away from the cold. Nehemiah had a good fire going before he came to the village. Let us make some spiced ale to warm us all in this bitter weather.’
Kitty ran ahead of them into the house. She was anxious to prepare her room for the Leiden family and move her few small possessions into my room. Nehemiah had already gone to the barn to knock together two simple truckle beds, one for Kitty, which would slide under my bed during the day, the other for the Leiden children, while their parents would sleep in the large bed Kitty and Hannah had once shared.
Gideon had led Blaze into the barn and returned now with his own small bundle.
‘You shall have the room which used to be Tom’s,’ I said, ‘before he lost his leg and could not climb the stairs. I have made it as comfortable for you as I can. I have put your books on the little table.’
‘I gave those books to you, Mercy.’
‘Aye, well, we will share them. But do you keep them in your room for now. And Gideon–’
‘Aye?’
‘When we are not too occupied about the farm, I wonder whether you would teach Kitty to read? I made a small start last summer, but there has been no chance in recent months. She is a clever little soul, and she wants to learn.’
‘Of course. How old is she now?’
‘Twelve. Thirteen soon.’
‘She is not the first young girl I have taught to read.’
We both smiled, remembering my lessons in the rectory, all those years ago, when he was the schoolmaster and I the humble pupil.
‘What would you like me to do now?’
‘It is already past time to start the morning milking. Nehemiah has promised me that he will teach you to milk. It is not difficult. If you do not mind?’
He reached out and took my hand.
‘Mercy, I want to learn everything I can about farming, so that I am not merely a useless encumbrance to you. Of course I must learn to milk.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘It will be good for me to be the pupil, and not always the master.’
‘Give me your bundle, then. Take Nehemiah a bucket for the milking. I will put your bundle in your chamber.’
Gideon went out to Nehemiah in the barn, but before I went into the house, I wanted to check on the newly thatched roof of the hen-hus. I found that Nehemiah had done it well, for it was sturdier than it had been before the flood. I fetched feed for the hens, then let them out into the run. They were soon rushing to and fro, scratching about for the grain as I threw on to the frozen ground. Already they were beginning to look more healthy.
In the kitchen my mother and Mistress Morton were busy heating the spiced ale and putting away the meagre supplies of food we had brought with us from the village. Later I would bring in some of the stores from the hay loft, but now I carried Gideon’s bundle up to his room. I laid it on the bed and looked around. It was certainly sparse, but in the rectory he had lived with very little, so I hoped it would not seem too unwelcoming. I could hear Kitty clattering about, climbing up and down the attic ladder. I hoped that Hans and Griet would not mind being lodged in the attic, but it was the largest chamber apart from my mother’s, better for the four of them than any on this floor. The other attic ch
amber was much smaller. The soldiers slept there lined up on their straw palliasses on the floor, with hardly room to move about.
Back in her own home, my mother seemed more her true self than she had been for weeks. She even stopped asking for my father. Mistress Morton set up the spinning wheel in its usual corner and sent Kitty for a bundle of carded wool stored in the attic. Soon my mother was hard at work, and I could see that the gentle, familiar rhythm of the wheel somehow gave her comfort. Her hands instinctively moved to perform the familiar tasks almost as quickly as when she had been herself.
At midday all the men trooped in from the yard. I noticed that the Dutchmen removed their dirty boots at the door without needing to be reminded, unlike many an Englishman I have known, including my brother.
‘Is the barn safe now?’ I asked, as we all sat down to the pottage Mistress Morton and I had made. Nehemiah had been lucky enough to catch two eels the previous day, in a trap he had left overnight in the gap where the drainers’ new ditch met Baker’s Lode. And we still had onions and carrots stored in the attic.
‘Aye,’ Gideon said. ‘That wall is quite sound now. And Nehemiah has nearly finished making the children’s beds.’
I saw Kitty frown a little at this, for she did not like to be thought a child any more. Indeed, she worked as hard as any woman grown.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘And how much milk did we get today?’
‘A mite more than yesterday, Mistress Mercy,’ Nehemiah said.
After so much disturbance, the cows were not yielding much, but it was to be hoped that they would soon be back to normal. There was always less milk in winter in any case.
The two Dutchmen said little as they ate their meal. I was not sure how much English they understood, but after our weeks cooped up together, most of the settlers were able to speak a little. They smiled and nodded their thanks as they were served, but made no attempt to join in the conversation. After the meal, they set off back to the village, where they would help with the house building. It was clear all the settlers were anxious to complete the cottages for the villagers who had lost their homes, in order to demonstrate their good will.