by Val Wood
At eleven o’clock when the house was quiet and the entire household had gone to bed, he slipped out of a side door, locking it behind him and pocketing the key. He saddled up Ebony, putting the blankets on his back, and walked him out of the stable yard, leading him through the wood and onto the track which led to the river. Then he mounted and rode to Mary-Ellen.
He tapped on her door. She had been listening for him and opened it immediately. Joseph put Ebony in the cow shelter with the horse blanket over him and patted the animal’s neck, whispering that he would have to get used to the occasional night out of his warm stable, and then went indoors.
There was a good fire burning and the lamp was lit. He threw the blanket onto the bed and opening his bag brought out the bottle of wine, a corkscrew, and the grapes. ‘Glasses!’ he groaned. ‘I didn’t bring any glasses!’
‘Then we’ll have to drink out of cups,’ she told him, ‘cos I don’t possess any.’
‘No matter,’ he said. ‘It will taste all the sweeter.’ He poured it into two cups and then kissed her. ‘This is to celebrate our love,’ he said softly. ‘The culmination of our dreams.’
She looked at him with her lips parted; her dark hair hung below her shoulders and the firelight sent flickering shadows about her.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘I shall love you for ever, until the end of life.’
He woke during the night and felt the touch of her naked body next to his. He put his arm across her, cupping her breast in his hand, and she murmured in her sleep.
A little later Mary-Ellen woke and turned to look at him. She examined his fair skin. His eyes were closed, dark lashes fringing the lids. Her fingertips fluttered about his firm mouth and then over his cheekbones.
He opened his eyes and gazed sleepily at her. ‘This is what I have dreamed of, Mary-Ellen,’ he murmured. ‘To wake with you beside me.’
‘Always wake me before you leave,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t ever go without telling me that you love me, so that I can think of it all day long.’
During the winter days of January and February they had their secret meetings. Sometimes Mary Ellen cooked a rabbit and they ate their supper at midnight, and Joseph left before dawn to be home before the servants stirred. Whether they knew, he cared not, though he realized that they would be curious about the amount of extra wine which was being consumed, and the grapes and melons which disappeared from the table.
His parents suspected nothing, although his sister sometimes remarked that he was looking tired when he joined them for their midday meal. ‘Are you staying out late?’ she teased. ‘Are you frequenting the hostelries?’
‘I don’t always sleep well,’ was his rejoinder, which was perfectly true. He did very little sleeping when he was with Mary-Ellen.
As winter turned, they both knew it would become more difficult. Dawn was breaking earlier and he had to get home before the stable lads and estate workers were about. Once, when he was late back, he saw Jack Terrison stretching and yawning. Jack slept above the stables and must have got up to relieve himself. Joseph put Ebony into the stable and told Jack, though on reflection he realized he didn’t need to, that he’d been out for an early morning ride.
He came to her one night and told her that his parents and sister were going away the following morning for a few days. ‘Come and stay with me,’ he said eagerly. ‘I’ll come for you tomorrow night when everyone is in bed and bring you back the next morning.’
Mary-Ellen objected. ‘The servants – Jane – they’ll see me! How can I?’
‘They won’t see you. Most of them are abed by nine o’clock, and Jane doesn’t come upstairs,’ he told her. ‘She’s in the kitchen or the wash house, I believe.’
‘Don’t you know?’ she asked, wondering what kind of household it was where the son of the house didn’t know the duties of the servants.
‘Why would I know?’ He laughed. ‘I have nothing to do with any of that.’
She was curious, she had to admit, about the kind of life he led away from her and so reluctantly she agreed, when he assured her that no-one would see her enter or leave the house.
She rode up behind him until they reached the small wood and then he dismounted and led Ebony through to the drive and the side of the house, where he lifted Mary-Ellen down and hitched the reins to a hook on the wall.
‘I’ll take you upstairs first and then come down and stable Ebony,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.’
They crept up the stairs and Mary-Ellen jumped as a clock struck ten. He smiled and squeezed her hand but she didn’t relax until they reached his room, where a lamp was burning low, a fire was lit in the grate, and she saw that the bed sheet had been turned back in readiness for occupancy.
‘I won’t be long,’ he said quietly. ‘There’s a dressing room through that door if you should need anything.’
Mary-Ellen gazed round the huge high-ceilinged chamber. This one room would house a whole family. It’s bigger even than Aunt Lol’s house. And the bed! It could sleep six easily. She looked curiously at a long chair and wondered why it had a back rest only at one end; her eyes were drawn to a wooden carver chair pulled up to a writing desk by the window. She went across to it and saw embossed paper and envelopes, a pen and a bottle of ink. There was also a metal box of lucifers and a stick of what looked like hard wax.
She cautiously opened the door which Joseph had said led to a dressing room, and wondered why he would want a separate room for dressing when he had so much space in the bedroom. It was a small room with a long cupboard and a hanging rail for Joseph’s working clothes, his cord breeches and tweed jacket. His shoes and boots stood on a shelf and she marvelled at how many pairs of footwear one man could want. There were dress boots and half-boots and boots with elastic sides, shoes with a loose tongue inside them and another shiny pair which appeared to be hardly worn, that fastened with a broad ribbon.
She opened the cupboard door and saw various top hats, one with a tall crown, others with lower ones, on a shelf above a rail which held a dark green tailcoat and the narrow trousers Joseph had been wearing when he came to see her after her father had died. How odd, she thought, that I should remember that, though in truth every moment that I have been with him is etched in my memory. She turned away and closed the door. Against the other wall was a marble washstand with a flowered jug and bowl standing on it. She put her hand to the jug of water. Warm! One of the maids must have brought it up when she came to turn down the sheets, she reasoned.
Underneath the washstand was a cupboard, and inside, when she opened the small door, was a plain chamber pot. ‘Great heavens,’ she murmured aloud. ‘Does ’maid have to empty that too?’
Joseph returned a few minutes later and found her sitting on the long chair. She had taken off her boots and put her feet up. He smiled at her apparent ease. ‘What do you think?’ he said. ‘Do you like it?’
‘This chair?’ she said. ‘Is it a sofa? Why has it only got one end?’
‘It’s a chaise-longue,’ he said. ‘French for long chair.’
‘Hah!’ she scoffed. ‘I knew it was a long chair! Why don’t they call it that, then, instead of giving it a silly French name?’
He laughed. ‘I don’t know! Perhaps the French thought of it first.’ He put his hands out to her. ‘Never mind that. Come here to me.’ He pulled her to her feet. ‘I want to take you to my bed,’ he murmured, ‘so that when you are not here I can think of how it was with you in it.’
Slowly he unbuttoned her bodice and the strings on her skirt and let them fall, leaving her naked. ‘Sit down again,’ he whispered. ‘Lean against the back rest and let me look at you.’
She did as she was bid, lifting her hair and draping her arm above her head. He kissed her, his lips traversing her body, and then she watched him as he swiftly removed his garments: his coat and boots, his white shirt and cotton undershift, his trousers and long cotton under-drawers and gre
y stockings. Naked, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. She was enfolded in crisp cotton sheets and soft blankets with his warm body next to hers.
‘This is what I have wanted so much, Mary-Ellen,’ he said softly. ‘That one day you would be here in my own bed where you belong.’
Mary-Ellen was the first to open her eyes the next morning, awakened by the cries of geese as they flew over the house. She saw the pale streaks of dawn coming through the gap in the curtains, for they had opened them last night to let in the light of the moon. ‘Joseph,’ she breathed. ‘Joseph, wake up! It’s getting light. I have to go home!’
He came to with a start. ‘Damn,’ he cursed. ‘I wanted to savour the moment of waking next to you.’ He kissed her mouth and then ran his fingers through his crumpled hair. ‘Now we must rush before the horse lads get up.’
It was five o’clock by the timepiece on his bedside table and they both hurried to dress without first washing. ‘I’m sorry, my darling,’ he said, as he pulled on his boots. She was already dressed, having fewer clothes to put on than he had. ‘It won’t always be like this, I promise. I’ll speak to my parents when they come back.’
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘Not yet. Wait a bit. It’s too soon.’ They won’t want me, she realized. Why would they want their only son to be with somebody like me? Somebody who doesn’t know how to behave, or know what the French is for a long chair! A nobody whose cousin scrubs floors and bleaches the bed sheets below in the wash house. She gazed wistfully and lovingly at him. He’s living in a dream and I know that the dream would turn sour.
She waited by the gate in the wood whilst he fetched Ebony. ‘Did anybody see you?’ she asked, and was relieved when he shook his head. But he didn’t tell her that once again he had seen that early riser, Jack Terrison, as he left the stable yard, and that when he looked back before turning into the wood Terrison had been standing with his hands in his pockets watching him.
At the beginning of May, when blackbirds were singing and finches were twittering and the leaves on the trees were a soft new green, he determined that he should declare his love for her to his parents. ‘I want to tell them now. They’ll object, I know,’ he told Mary-Ellen as he prepared to leave her early one morning and ride home. ‘They’ll say that this is an obsession and won’t last. But I shall tell them that I love you and want you to be with me always.’
Mary-Ellen turned to him. She had been gazing up at the morning sky where the sun was breaking through the soft white clouds which were scudding across the vast expanse of blue and gold. A flock of grey plover flew over, followed by black-headed gulls.
‘And carry your bairns?’ she asked softly.
‘That too.’ He smiled, coming towards her and trailing Ebony by his reins. ‘Anything you want, I want as well.’
She nodded, gazing at him, preparing for the reaction to what she was about to tell him. ‘You know about babbies, do you?’ Her voice was nervous, though she had intended it to be sober and unemotional. She had been thinking all the night of how she should tell him and if now she would lose him. ‘Know how they’re made?’
‘What are you saying, Mary-Ellen?’ A small frown appeared above his nose. ‘Are you telling me – are you saying that – I thought I was so careful!’ But not careful enough, he thought. How could I be when I wanted her so much?
She stiffened. ‘Well now, there’s a dilemma,’ she said, her voice flat. She swallowed hard. There was no doubt about it. She had waited until she was sure before telling him, although she had spent anxious days and nights worrying over what would now become of her and whether he would still want her with a child around her skirts, or abandon her.
He grinned. ‘Not a dilemma,’ he told her. Dropping the reins, he hugged her. ‘Now we have no choice. I want to look after you, Mary-Ellen, and our child too.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘So, Mary-Ellen. Who’s ’fayther of your bairn?’
Mary-Ellen jumped. She should have realized that Aunt Lol would be perceptive enough to notice. But how? She hadn’t put on weight, though she had been sick so perhaps she was looking pale.
‘How do you know?’ she asked. ‘I mean, what makes you think …’
Lol slowly shook her head. ‘I’ve had enough childre’ to be able to tell ’minute it’s conceived.’ She took hold of Mary-Ellen’s chin and looked deep into her eyes. There was no censure or criticism hidden in her gaze, but perhaps a vestige of disappointment as she said, ‘Never thought it’d happen to you, Mary-Ellen! Thought you’d have had more sense than to be caught by some brainless village lad! Now what ’we going to do?’
‘It’s not a village lad, Aunt Lol, but I don’t want to say who it is. Not at ’moment, anyway.’
Lol frowned. ‘Will he support you? Have you told him? Will he marry you?’
‘Yes, yes, and he would if I wanted. But I don’t.’
‘Don’t want to marry! How will you live?’ Lol’s voice rose in scorn. ‘How will you pay ’rent, and buy food and clothing?’
Mary-Ellen bit her lip. It was a subject she and Joseph had argued about. He had called one morning and found her halfway down the track on the way into Welwick. After much probing he discovered that she was about to apply for parish relief in order to pay the rent which she was sure was in arrears. Then he told her that the rent was paid. He’d said at first that her father had paid it, but she knew that was a lie; her father never had enough money to pay in advance. ‘You paid it,’ she had accused him. ‘That makes me a kept woman!’
‘So what?’ he’d shouted, and turning her round he’d marched her back to the cottage. ‘I intend to marry you and you’ll be a kept woman then, so what does it matter if I pay the rent now?’
He had also brought her gifts, though he said they were not gifts but necessities. Bedding, pillows, a new rug for the floor, petticoats, woollen skirts and a warm cloak, things that she found hard to resist and which in any case he refused to take back. She had to either keep them or burn them, he told her. So she kept them.
‘Is he married?’ Lol asked.
‘No. I said he would marry me, didn’t I? But I won’t marry him.’
‘He’s gentry then? Gentleman farmer? Did he force you, lass?’
‘No.’ Mary-Ellen found her lips were trembling as she explained. ‘I love him, Aunt Lol. But I’ll ruin his life if we marry.’
Joseph had come up with many suggestions when she had told him that she wouldn’t marry him and live at Burstall House. He said they would marry and live quietly in Hedon where he was not so well known. He would give up farming and they would go away, to Scarborough or Filey. ‘We’ll have a little house by the sea, Mary-Ellen. Would you like that?’ he’d pleaded. ‘Or we could live in Hull. Or go anywhere you want.’
She knew then how much he loved her, to be willing to give up so much. ‘Let’s wait until ’babby is born,’ she’d entreated, and felt a shadow hovering over her. ‘I’d like it to be born here in my own home.’
‘It’s Mr Ellis, isn’t it?’ Lol said, ‘’Young ’andsome one, I mean. Our Daniel said he’s seen him about a few times.’
Mary-Ellen remained silent for a moment. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, Aunt Lol. Not just yet, anyway.’
‘You can’t hide it, Mary-Ellen,’ Lol said. ‘Tongues’ll wag and mebbe some other young blade’ll get ’blame.’
‘No, they won’t,’ Mary-Ellen denied hotly. ‘I’ve never been seen with any lad. Nobody will know or even guess. And anyway, who ever sees me in this isolated place?’
She hadn’t denied that Joseph Ellis was the father, but she knew that Aunt Lol would keep her counsel and help her when her time came.
‘Just think.’ Lol pursed her lips. ‘You’re eighteen now and I’m nearly forty, and my bairn and yourn will mebbe grow up together if you stay round here. When will it be? November? A Christmas babby?’
‘I don’t know, Aunt Lol,’ Mary-Ellen confessed. ‘I don’t know how to work it out.’
‘Christmas then, I should think,’ her aunt said, and sighed. ‘He won’t have told his parents?’
Mary-Ellen took a breath. ‘He’s telling them today.’
Joseph’s parents were furious. At least his father was; livid in his rage. His mother grew extremely pale and Joseph thought she was going to faint. ‘We had such plans,’ she said quietly, taking out a handkerchief and pressing it to her lips. ‘We thought that when you married you and your wife would live here and we would move to a smaller house. But how can a girl without any kind of upbringing run a household like this?’
‘You’re an idiot,’ his father roared. ‘Set her up in a house somewhere if you must, but how will you find a wife if you’re openly keeping a mistress?’
‘You don’t understand.’ Joseph was baffled by their lack of compassion. ‘I love her. I want to be with her. I want Mary-Ellen to be my wife.’
‘Well,’ his father said testily. ‘You’re of age to do whatever you want; we can’t stop you. But I’ll tell you this.’ He shook his fist and Joseph had never seen him so angry. ‘Don’t bring her here, for she’s not welcome. And another thing – don’t tell your sister! We have her future to think about.’
It was an impasse and it was the thought of his sister which made Joseph hesitate. Julia’s own marriage prospects would be ruined if he brought Mary-Ellen into the family.
But at least it was out in the open now and he didn’t have to worry about sneaking out of the house to visit Mary-Ellen. ‘You are quite right,’ he told her as he took her into his arms. ‘We’ll wait until the infant is born and then decide where we shall live.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘Where we shall have our love nest.’
It was a beautiful summer. The sun shone almost constantly and when it rained it came at night, soft gentle rain which renewed the earth. The grain flourished and the peas and beans in Mary-Ellen’s vegetable plot grew plump, and the potatoes came up by the bucketful. The hens were laying and Joseph brought a nanny goat and kid, so that Mary-Ellen had plenty of milk. Her skin glowed and her hair became even glossier and she felt fit and well and happy.