by Betty Burton
Jude laughed, carefully because of the upward pull of her new hair. “Well then, I shall have a striped dress, though it’s likely to be out of fashion by then.”
“I thought you could marry Mr Vickery, Jude,” said Hanna. “He’s the right size for you.”
Although she felt that her colour had risen, she saw from her reflection that it had not. Peg’s face, however, was quite flushed, but she tried to behave naturally and unconcerned in the face of talk about Will. Will Vickery. Her Will.
Jude with fashionable, high-dressed hair, felt poised enough to have supper with the king himself.
“A pulpit’s what he ought to marry,” said Mrs Warren, now receiving Peg’s attentions.
“Is he a preacher?” asked Jude.
“Not in that sense, not in church. But he do go on about things. Mr Warren’s quite bad enough, but when the two of they’s together! I told him, it’s a special treat and it’s got to be a jolly supper. Singing! That kind of thing.”
Except for the years following the Black Death, when people were scarce and physical work better valued, English employers of farm labour have always believed a good employer is one who makes the occasional enquiry about the Old Bronchitis, Nice little Ratting-terrier or Fine Litter of Pigs. No matter that it is arthritis or a whippet, it is the thought that counts. They are firm in their belief that a word from Master compensates for poor wages and bad conditions.
The employed have never thought much of that idea. But at least if His Lordship rides by and says to a gardener, “How d’e do Briggs”, or, “Plucky Little Dog That, Briggs”, or his gracious daughter sews a flannel shirt for the gardener’s child, then the gardener is left with the impression that he is some sort of a person because His Lordship called him Briggs-even if his name was Norris.
On the other hand, should His Lordship uproot Briggs from the place and people he knows, set him down in a strange and unwelcoming place, visit the estate only on rare occasions when the fancy takes him, and cannot remember either Briggs or Norris . . . then Briggs, or Norris, or Vickery for that matter, is likely to emerge from the fog of “How d’e do Briggs”, and little flannel shirts and begin to realise that he has never been other than a possession to his Lordship. The fact that His Lordship does not actually own Briggs is neither here nor there. His Lordship owns . . . My gardener, My fishing-rod, My harpsichord, My Head stableman.
When the Duke of Berol acquired an estate in Ireland, he removed some of his servants there and then lost interest. He was instrumental in the making of Will Vickery. Vickery senior, the Duke’s head stableman, took the Duke at his word and expected a new and better life there. Instead, Vickery found that he was resented by local workers, the family were cut off from relatives and friends, and the Duke seldom came to see the results of his employees’ labour or to say How d’e do? Gradually the Vickerys were forced to see the Duke’s low estimation of their worth: in proud people like the Vickerys, it rankled.
The forced exile and a festering discontent compounded by the absent and careless Duke of Berol, instilled into the five young Vickerys an awareness of what’s what and a radical way of thinking. “That’s never right”, and, “If the law was up to me . . .” were phrases greatly used by them. And for all its faults, the five children grew up knowing that England was a desirable place to live in. When Barnabas White decided that Warren needed an assistant, Mrs White – who had been a Vickery – remembered her cousin’s son, who was working right up North.
Will Vickery had no striking good looks, was not much above average height or breadth and did not concern himself much with having shiny buttons and frogging on his coats. Women of all ages found him attractive. He looked them directly in the eye and paid attention to their point of view. He had been brought up in a household where five women had views about everything and would be taken seriously.
He was always a welcome visitor to the Warrens’ house. Although Will was, at twenty-six, only eight years younger than Fred and six years younger than Molly, the fact that he had no partnership in business, no house, wife and family of four to provide for, made the age differences appear to be greater. Fred liked him as a fellow-radical. Molly had fallen for him in a maternal way and fed him extra slices of red meat as she did to her boys: they needed building up. Peg, at the same age as Juliet when she loved Romeo, had equally strong passions. It was pain and pleasure when she met Will; it was torture and delight to sit at table with him. It was misery to have heard his name connected, even jokingly, with Judeth’s.
It was with mixed feelings that Will walked from his lodgings. He had imagined the evening over and over again. She intrigued him. He had only to catch sight of a head of red hair these days. He had not realised that there were so many. After the episode when he had seen her in Fred Warren’s arms, he had argued with himself that he was reading something into it, and had begun to convince himself that the tutor stood in for the father. When he had found her on the downs, the sight of her half-dead had overwhelmed him. Then, on that day when he came upon them laughing together at the farm, all his painful doubt returned. He wanted to see her. He didn’t want to see her. He wanted to see her again in Fred Warren’s company, but not if his doubts were confirmed.
The Warrens were still unused to their new affluence, and tended to be lavish and extravagant, so that to be entertained to a meal by them was to sit at a laden table and be plied with delicacies by Molly and wine by Fred. Fred had never shaken off the influence of the boarding school, and Molly was still a grocer’s daughter: they had dinner at dinner-time and supper at supper-time and they mixed with people who were like them. Dinner was in the middle of the day, supper was in the evening.
No matter in what kind of a bad mood one might be before sitting at supper with them, it was sure to be driven off soon by their very affability and generosity.
Apart from Will, there was Mrs Gardine (an old friend of Mrs Warren) and her husband, and Mr and Mrs Carter, who lived in the next house to the Warrens, with their son James: a total of fourteen to supper.
As the evening went by, impressions crowded upon Jude. There were a few late roses, a bowl of polished apples and a branch of candles. Everything seemed red and warm. The wine, the apples, the roses, the heavy curtains; even the white walls flickered pinkly. The three married women wore dresses of pretty colours, embroidered and flounced, with either ribbons or feathers in their complicated hair. They made good wine at Croud Cantle, but it never achieved the headiness of that at Fred’s table, neither was it served in glasses with stems. The lightness of spirit she felt earlier increased. She found it easy to talk.
Mrs Gardine and Mrs Carter knew her, of course, as the market-girl who came to stand on the market outside the Star. They couldn’t get over how she joined in the conversation. If it wasn’t for her hands and her brown face, you couldn’t a told she was a farm girl.
Will was seated opposite Jude. Each tried to catch a look at the other unawares, so inevitably they were constantly catching one another’s eye and not quite knowing what to do when it happened. He did not know what to make of her. She appeared to be all contradictions. Her hands holding the delicate glass had rough skin and nails. She moved them constantly, as though speaking a second language. In contrast to the other women she was poorly dressed. She had talked with enthusiasm about the possibility of buying a new dress, yet never felt obliged to apologise for her present work-a-day clothes. And she had her hair more strikingly arranged than any of the other women. His work took him to farms every day; he saw farm-girls every day, many prettier than she was, but he had never seen one so . . . He only realised that he had been staring at her when she spoke to him. “This will be your first Plough Fair then, Mr Vickery?”
“It is. I’ve always worked in the North since I came from Ireland.”
“Do they have big fairs like this, that goes on for a week?”
“There’s Goss Fair in Nottingham.”
She asked him about it; he told her about it bein
g a goose fair; then she asked him what went on and he told her – both of them being drawn into a short conversation quite separately from the rest of the table.
When Will arrived at the Warrens’ house his affable manner hid an unconscious anger, at Judeth, Fred and at himself. Every time he stole a look at her he found that she was looking at him, and he could not decide whether she was artless or wanton. Then, over the short conversation about fairs, he discovered that he did not care. If she was on over-familiar terms with his superior, then she was! If she was not the near-perfect woman he had idealised, then she wasn’t! All he did care about was that he wanted to know her better.
As they talked, Judeth lost the embarrassment she had felt about him ever since Fred had shown her the true identity of Lady Geraldine’s ideal lover. Why should she feel embarrassed to have written Will Vickery into her story? Most likely he would be an ideal lover. She was not even surprised at herself having such a thought.
“Well, I’ve been to Fair Monday, but never been for the whole of Fair Week. Perhaps we should see some of it together.”
She said it as naively as Hanna would have. Surely, Will’s subconscious concluded, it’s impossible that she’s the kind of woman I’ve been thinking? She would have used more guile; would have worked the conversation round so that I would make the suggestion. I’ve been wrong.
After the meal, they all sat around like a country family at ease. Fred sang, Mrs Gardine told a long tragic poem and Sam played a tin whistle he had bought at the fair. Nobody minded that it was tuneless tooting, there was an infectious merriment in the room. Nobody wanted to make a move to break up the party, but Hanna and Sam kept falling asleep, so when Fred suggested that they all go together next evening and walk about the fair after dark, everybody was pleased to go home with the prospect of the same good company the next evening.
Hanna, full of pleasures and food, was asleep as soon as she got into bed. It was Peg’s room that Judeth and Hanna were using, whilst Peg slept in a tiny attic above. The attic was virtually part of the bedroom and had no door, and for a long time Judeth heard no steady breathing to show that the young girl was asleep. There is always a readiness to say about a youthful passion, “You will get over it”, but until it is got over it is quite as painful as a mature emotion. There was nothing Judeth could do: she was the last person Peg would want to confide in.
The habit of writing for at least an hour every night made it difficult for Judeth to go to sleep otherwise. She lay with Hanna breathing deeply beside her. The night was full of strange sound. There were always noises at home: the tree branch that rubbed the roof; mice; the wild animals and the domestic ones; squeaking, lowing, grunting; Bella’s snore coming through the thin partition. There were animal noises here: horses and other strange ones – the dromedary perhaps; mice here, too; Fred’s rumbling voice and the edge of Mrs Warren’s Blackbrook whine; strangest of all to Judeth was to hear voices coming from outside the house. It had never occurred to her that people were ever out in the streets this late at night.
Judeth put her arm around Hanna and felt a fierce burst of love and compassion for her. She had watched her off and on all day, as the gaudy booths and flags and gew-gaws and useless trinkets and the calls, drums and tin whistles had worked trumpery magic on the children. Vitality. Excitation. As Judeth herself had experienced with the cheerful Warrens and their cheerful friends. She felt a pang at the thought of taking her back to the milking, churning, fetching and carrying; to the uneventful evenings and days where her only youthful companion was the reticent Johnny-twoey.
Apart from that, she lay awake feeling pleased with life. She wanted other people to be pleased also, but reality intruded. Whilst she had a week of pleasure, somebody else was doing her work. Judeth’s very existence had been brought about by a past distress for Bella. The source of Judeth’s pleasure was the cause of Peg’s unhappiness, and the reason that Judeth and Bella could have Hanna was because Jaen could not. Pleasure was never unadulterated. Not for somebody like Judeth, whose conscience was primed by Bella at an early age: It’s all right for some!
Jaen.
It had been on another such few days of visiting, in Rathley, that Jaen had met Dan Hazelhurst.
Jaen at Rathley.
Judeth closed her mind. There were things there; long-buried, unhealed. It would not stay closed. Jaen had gone to Rathley. The flicker of an image . . . the little bantam that Judeth was always saving from the great, aggressive cock with his jerky head and bright, fleshy wattles as he followed the little brown bird about: she taking little runs, fluttering, scrambling from his attentions.
Younger than Jude was now – Jaen. She had escaped briefly the uneventful evenings at Croud Cantle, where she was not even able to lose herself on Crusoe’s island or Gulliver’s problems.
Jaen, relieved for a few days from the milking and churning, the field-mud and the barn-mire; from the damp chill of the dairy, from their mother’s queer ideas about dust motes; and scrubbing red tiles, and obsessiveness about taking water from the deep well. There hadn’t seemed anything odd about that, living on top of it, but away from it . . . Their mother was strange. She did not mix with Cantle people, or they did not mix with her.
Jaen. Perhaps it had been flowers and polished apples. People. People laughing. People who sometimes let themselves go. A room that was red and warm, with more flickering flames than were necessary to light it. Perhaps Dan Hazelhurst had sat across the table and Jaen had felt a pang at having to return to the isolated life at Croud Cande.
But history would not repeat itself. She had a vague recollection of being with her mother, talking about Jaen. It must have been soon after Jaen got married; they had hardly ever talked very deep about her since. Jude thinking, I won’t never do anything like that and make Mother unhappy. Yet, wasn’t it Mother’s fault? If she hadn’t always been so sharp. If she had only sometimes given them a bit of a hug or something, or let you put your arms round her. She never did. Jude had a picture – perhaps just a feeling deep in her mind: she was very little, trying to climb on to the wide expanse of her mother’s apron . . . Bella’s firm grip on Jude’s elbows as she was firmly planted back on the floor . . . damp, cold, red tiles.
Slowly Jude drifted up to a point where she looked down. Occasionally when she was on Tradden or Old Marl she had experienced a kind of remoteness, as though what went on below was not to do with her. At this distance from the farm and her mother, with the draw-string loosened, she felt very remote.
What would it have been like if their father ..? But Croud Cantle without her mother in charge was unimaginable. The Tomas Nugent she saw in her mind’s eye was young, beautiful, in a blue coat. He did not fit the real world of the mire of the yard. She could not picture him prising vegetables from frozen clamps, or bending his back in the field with scythe or sickle, working, rivulets of sweat running clean through his dirt. Would there have been more warmth with him there? Had he run away from the cold of the farm? Had he been the cause of it? Had it descended upon their mother, or had she brought it with her? On the rare occasions when she let herself go – at the reaping, this very morning when they had gone round Blackbrook, Bella in the pretty, old-fashioned jacket – it was as though the strings that held her upright when she was on the farm, stumping about, straight-backed and square-shouldered . . . it was as though the tension on her strings slackened and she became rounded, soft and bending.
Judeth heard the abbey clock strike three o’clock. Peg was asleep now with deep, regular breathing; Hanna jumped from time to time. As Judeth drifted into sleep she was not actively thinking of the prospect of the next day or of meeting Will Vickery again. He was there, though, complicating her thoughts. Her thoughts had led her to the point of seeing clearly the effect that Tomas Nugent’s nature had had upon their lives. Mother, Jaen, herself, Mrs Trowell, Hanna – and the blacks he had traded in. He had only been about Will Vickery’s age.
Although Molly Warren took life very much
as it came, she had not much enjoyed the years when they had lived in Motte. Now that she was back in the place where she had grown up, she was content.
On the Tuesday morning, Mrs Warren took her visitor about the town.
“Peg will take the children and we shall go about like sisters. You will call me Molly.”
Jude felt frivolous and self-indulgent and needed little persuading to dip into the money Bella had given her. Molly Warren seemed to know everybody in Blackbrook. Although Jude knew people from the years of standing on the market, Molly belonged. She had been born and bred there, the grocer’s daughter, part of the class of small trade – I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine was their philosophy. Molly had no difficulty in buying the sapphire stripe cheaply, or in getting a promise of having it made up quickly.
It was during Fair Week that thrifty housewives bought their cotton, pins, needles and buttons in quantity for the next year. Jude was caught up in the pleasure of handing over coins and receiving little packages. She laughed each time she said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do with it,” but still went on buying bits and pieces of frippery and ornament and went back to Molly’s house feeling quite intoxicated with her rashness.
Later, many of the party of the previous evening met to take their walk round the Fair together. Hanna and the boys, having spent hours wandering about, knew every interesting and exciting stall and constantly insisted that they look at this or come and see that. Peg walked sedately apart from them, until James – who had hitherto suffered in her eyes from being too young and living next door, but was now aided by a fashionable coat and hat with gold braid – began to be a bearable companion. Will walked with Molly and Jude, and Fred with his neighbours.
The voices inside Will were unquiet, conflicting. An angel in one ear insisted that he walk beside Mrs Warren and Jude and be pleasant to his employer’s wife, making casual conversation; a devil in the other bawled at him. His hands wanted to listen to the devil; to feel the texture of wild, red hair and the shape of waist, breasts and shoulders.