by Betty Burton
My teeth clenched at my hatred of that man.
When I took Hanna back into the house, Jaen was apprehensive, clutching her locked fingers under her bosom and rocking slightly back and forth. She kept saying the same things, over and over in a strained, wheedling, whining voice. “Why not let her go back, Dan? It’s all too strange for her. Let her go back. I can manage. She’s only eight: what bit of work she can do here won’t make much difference.” And to me she said, “I didn’t know, Ju. I swear I never knew.”
“She stays and there’s an end to it. We don’t want none of your Nugent nerves and fancifulness again today, Missis. Nor none of your tears or sulks, Girl.” Hanna flinched but now stood solidly, a little Bella Nugent, facing whatever she had to face.
And he stood there, God, warming the backside of His breeches at the fire.
On that little patch of earth, that was what he was: insensitive, arrogant god. He held the lives of Jaen, Hanna, and the little boys. He ruled, too, the servant-girls and milk-maids whose parents, in their poverty, had virtually given them to him on the basis of an exchange of work for bread. None of them were anything without him and what he owned. They had no say in the gambles he took in the management of the farm; in how many pigs they should keep; in how much butter should be on the table. When it came down to it, not one of them had any real say in their own lives; what they ate, drank or were dressed in.
As the wind sometimes blows through the valley clogged by mists, so it blew through my mind. When it was cleared of the obscuring wants, desires, ifs, and buts of everyday living, I could see one fact clearly, standing isolated like the eccentric, mysterious stone on Winchester Hill.
People like me, ordinary men and women, are bound about by unjust laws, written and unwritten: rules; oppressive customs. Poverty, fear, lack of education and plain exhaustion from work keep us from breaking free from their hold upon us. But as I was now, unmarried, unattached, I was free of one set of laws – those which subjugate women in marriage. I was not held by the rules, nor enmeshed in customs.
I did not have to marry. I did not need to marry.
This was the one freedom that I had.
To remain a spinster.
No judge, minister, lord or bishop could take that freedom from me.
The smoke did not clear as I stood there; these thoughts did not occur to me in sequence or even in words at all. But seeing Jaen, clutching and unclutching her white-knuckled fingers and Hanna, bewildered and distraught, there was an amalgamated thought that summed up the rest: Never!
I went away from Ham Ford Farm and out of Newton Clare in a stupor of anguish.
I had no idea how long I had been there. The sun, which was only visible through occasional cracks in the scudding cloud, had swung round and had already begun to drop down. The wind that had been gusty earlier in the day was gathering strength, was loud and turbulent.
The distance between Newton Clare and Cantle is not great, but the state of parts of the road have always been renowned as the worst in the four parishes. Having Hanna’s donkey as well as my own meant my progress was slow. And, of course, I was preoccupied. However was I going to break it to my mother?
Had the Goodenstones not effectively stopped all reasonable exit from Old Marl by enclosing the land at its base, then I might have travelled as the crow flies and been at least in the village before the light failed, even if not actually home. As it was, there was no quicker way home than to go a slightly longer route along the Tradden Raike.
When I reached the steep slope, I dismounted and led the two beasts, one of which was always difficult if it had no panniers or rider. It stopped and started so many times that it was dark by the rime I reached the summit. Being Tradden, I knew every hummock, hole and track, and because the chalk was so close to the surface, footpaths and raikes showed up as if drawn upon the grass.
I had just started the descent when the animal stopped and refused to move. I tried sitting upon its back, but it would not budge. I wondered whether, by some sense that animals have, there was some danger, or whether it could hear a sound over the uproar of the March winds; but I could see or hear nothing. A tiny glimmer of light far down, from our farm window. The anxiety I was feeling over my mother increased. I could feel the strain of the day building up. I wanted to rush on towards facing my mother with the terrible event. I wanted to get the imagined distraught face of her out of my mind and into reality where I could cope with it. I wanted the distracting wind to calm itself and allow the air to become peaceful.
At last, when I could bear the stubborn animal no longer, I whipped it across its back with the leading rope. It gave a loud bray and raced off across the downs. I let it go, making no attempt to get it back. The good beast followed me. After a few minutes, I saw a light moving along the narrow track that leads up from the farm, then a call: “Ju-deth. Ju-u-deth.” I recognised Will’s voice and called back to him.
By calling out from time to time, we soon met. As soon as I saw his outline and heard his deep, gentle voice, a kind of dry sob broke spontaneously from me. I felt as though I had been submerged in a deep pond and had forgotten to come up for breath until he reminded me. He took the leading rope from me and held the lantern out at arm’s length, looking along the track.
“Where’s Hanna? What has happened?”
“They’ve taken her back.” I think my voice was trembling, certainly my hands and legs were.
He pulled me gently into his shoulder and patted my back, as one would a child who has fallen down. There was great comfort in his action, but I pulled away at once.
“I must get down to tell Mother.”
“Ah, just take it easy a minute.” He raised the lantern high and waved it slowly back and forth a few times. “Your mother is waiting by the yard gate. She’ll go in now I’ve given her the signal. You’re trembling like a leaf. Just sit and rest. Here,” he unstoppered a small pocket flask and handed it to me. “Go on, it’s good French brandy.”
I swallowed a mouthful and felt the searing passage of the liquid as it branded my throat then spread out into my body, relaxing it. Oh, Will, how gentle, how firm as a rock, how reliable. Will Vickery, calm, un-godlike. As he went with me down Tradden it did seem the most desirable thing to have someone who loved me enough to share the weight of the awful misery of Hanna’s loss to us. I was quite sure that he did love me. Marriage tempting. The road that was signposted and known, going that way with someone who loved you.
“Jude! Jude!” My mother’s voice rose up from the valley. Breaking into my thoughts, she broke the spell. I called a reply.
“Your mother thought you might a had an accident or something. She was expecting you long ago. I stopped on to keep her company. When it began to get dark, I said I would take the lantern out.”
He kept the one-sided conversation going as we went slowly down. I could think only of how I was going to break the news to Mother. I cannot bear seeing people suffering, miserable. I cannot cope. I do not know what to do. No doubt I shall appear indifferent to her desolation. Words are useless, weak things, when it comes to expressing the deep emotion of compassion.
In the event, it was not necessary to choose words. When we reached the bottom of Tradden, Mother was in the yard holding a lantern, but the moon was now flooding light so that she could clearly see that there was only one donkey, and that Hanna was not with us.
I wanted to get it over. “Mother, Hanna . . .”
She interrupted me. “He took her back.”
Not a question – a statement. Inevitability.
“Yes,” I said.
“I always thought he would, one fine day, once she got useful enough.”
Once, long ago, I had found her crying over Jaen. It was a shocking thing to me. Women did cry – but not my mother. I had thought her to be granite-solid, and was so disconcerted at finding that she had a hair-line crack, a flaw that she was ashamed of, that I had put my arms about her. And this is what I did.
She did not flinch or move away. I do not believe that she even realised that I had made this move towards her. She stood, running her hand over the dip in the donkey’s back, as though she was blind and was looking to find something there. After about a minute, which seemed long-stretched – Will and I, useless statues, waiting – she said, “I had thought I should a had her another four or five years. I never thought he’d a took her so soon.”
“There’s another baby on the way,” I said.
This seemed to bring her back from wherever she had been.
“He should a been born a bull, then he could at least a put it to some use.”
If I had expected anything, it was not her dull acceptance of the blow. Perhaps she had been waiting for it ever since Hanna came to us. Perhaps she felt a strange kind of relief that the blow had fallen. While I was still quite young, I realised that my mother’s philosophy was to expect the worst and be thankful if you got anything less.
“You go in,” Will said quietly. “I’ll see to the animal.”
“You still here, Will?” she said, apparently surprised at hearing his voice.
He took the lanterns and the donkey away and I went into the kitchen with Mother.
“I told Dan that I would go and live in, till Jaen was on her feet again, if he let Hanna come back here.”
She started preparing some food, her actions automatic.
“He wouldn’t have that, I’ll be bound.”
“No. He said it wouldn’t be long before she would get too big for her boots. I think he means like me.”
“He never liked you learning her to read.”
She handed me a thick crust of bread and lard and laid another plate out for Will.
“Will should ought to stop here tonight. He was that good when it got dark and you hadn’t come home. He’s a good lad, that. There an’t many like him about.”
“It’s a pity it wasn’t him that Jaen met,” I said.
It was my message to her not to expect anything to come of me and Will.
“You’m a fool, Jude!”
It was not the fact that Will broke in on that exchange that we said nothing more on the subject – there was nothing more to say.
After a bit of discussion as to whether I should sleep in with my mother and Will use my bed, he insisted that he was perfectly used to rolling up in any odd corner. Will moved about the kitchen as though he was entirely at home. Mother called him “Lad” or “Will Lad”, leaving no doubt in my mind that they had been getting on like a house afire. The more I thought about it, the more I saw what different lives we should all have lived if Jaen had brought somebody like Will to Croud Cantle.
We sat for a short while, eating and talking about nothing very much except whether the donkey would return on its own, or whether I would have to go searching for him.
“I’m going on up, then.” Ever since we had come into the house, although I had not realised it, I had watched every move my mother made, so that a series of detailed pictures and observations was imprinted on my mind. As she passed behind Will’s seat, I saw that she briefly touched his shoulder, then quickly returned the wayward hand to her pocket. Why do you find it so difficult to touch anyone, Mother? I do not need a reply. I know why. It is commitment. The first step towards rejection and hurt.
When my mother had gone to bed, I told Will that I was sorry I had gone off like that and not stopped and had dinner with him. If I wanted to keep him at arm’s length, that was not the way. It was childish and hurtful.
“Ah, that’s nothin’ now,” he said, “not compared to what happened. If you hadn’t a gone, I don’t suppose it’d made a deal a difference. I suppose your brother-in-law would a taken young Hanna back in the long run.”
“She was the centre of Mother’s life.”
“You could tell that. It’s a terrible, terrible thing for her.” He was so concerned for my mother’s feelings.
You’m a fool, Jude! I looked at him seated on the ingle-bench, gazing at the smouldering log, bending forward, elbows on knees. His unremarkable face, framed by unremarkable hair, intelligent eyes, sensitive, sensuous mouth. Desire for him flowed through me. I stopped my thoughts from going in that direction and began to clear away the remains of supper.
“Things are bound to change now, aren’t they Judeth? It’s not a small thing that’s happened y’know.”
“I know,” I said.
“Your mother was telling me just today that she’s only keeping the holding going for Hanna.”
“I know she is.” I tried to make a joke of it, “She doesn’t put much faith in me as a farmer.”
“That’s not true, she’s got nothin’ but praise for you.”
“She keeps it a dark secret then.”
“It’s not her way to be able to say the things she wants to.”
“She says them to you.”
“That’s because I don’t put up any barriers.” He spread his arms, and mockingly said, “No taboos – never a one. Wide open as a barn door.”
You’m a fool, Jude.
I would be safe with this open man. When Will Vickery stood with his back to the fire, he warmed the breeches of a humble man. I do not mean a servile man, for he had a very proper pride: I mean that Will was a man without arrogance. Best of all about Will was his good humour.
I was carrying things into the scullery, when he placed himself directly in my way and put his hands on my shoulders.
“Marry me, Judeth.”
I brushed his fingers briefly with my own, and shook my head.
“No, Will.”
We were standing close, looking directly at one another.
“I thought that’d likely be your answer, but I hoped it wouldn’t.”
“I wish it was different.”
He took away the things I was carrying, put them back on the table and led me to sit opposite him before the fire.
“It’s not because of what happened?”
For a moment I thought that he was referring to Hanna.
“Up there, when we didn’t bring back the holly.”
We both smiled, remembering our abandonment of the holly-bough.
“No, no. That’s one reason why I said I wish my answer was different.”
“I wondered, maybe, if you thought I was treating you lightly.”
“No. I never thought of it as you treating me. It was us – both. You just made it seem not a shameful thing to do.”
“Why then? You seem to like me well enough.”
“More than well enough.”
What could I say that did not sound perverse? To like someone more than well enough was not a bad basis for a marriage.
“I don’t think I can go on . . .” I found it almost impossible to give a simple explanation. Whatever I said was bound to come out sounding pettish: “I don’t want to go on doing the work that I am doing”, because the answer to that is, “Few of us do!” Would he understand if I told him that my brain is on fire?
“Can I make you understand, Will? All round these parts, there’s families who haven’t got enough food, no home, only rags to stand up in, and they’re being moved on all the time to the next parish and the next and the next. Mostly they are good, decent workers, who grow the food and build houses, but they finish up not having either. Yet there’s people like the Goodenstones, who never do a hand’s turn, with more of everything than they ever need. That’s wrong!”
I was stumbling along, but Will was nodding, encouraging me to go on.
“If I was rich, if I was educated, if I was a man, it seems to me that I could do something.”
“What d’you think it’d be, then?”
“That’s it – I don’t know. With just enough money to keep him going, a man would be able to ride from place to place; perhaps holding meetings, putting out broadsheets – things like that – just saying to people that there are terrible things happening that should be put right. I don’t even know whether it would do any good, but at least it
would be trying.”
Will said nothing. He appeared intent on filling his pipe with tobacco, carefully pulling the shreds apart and arranging them, as though it was a most important and delicate operation; but he was gazing into the fire.
“Go on,” he said at last.
“I can’t,” I said. “I don’t know what comes next. Every day my mind seems to get hotter and hotter with this idea that I should do something more than growing things and selling them on the market, and just thinking about how terrible it is to see so many people walking the roads looking for work.”
It was the actual speaking my thoughts that made them real. Confiding ideas to a journal are a poor substitute for expressing them to a responsive human being. I met his eyes and smiled wryly. “Do you think I shall end up like Holy Joe, going round the markets telling people, ‘Repent Ye!’?”
“There’s a way to do that – not Holy Joeing, but doing something to change the old ways that cause all that – and still marry me,” he said.
“The two of us up on your horse, travelling the markets to say, ‘Repent ye’?”
He was silent for a minute, as though gathering his thoughts.
“When I asked if you’d marry me, that was only the opening question about . . . ah, I’m about the same as yourself, things go on at the back of your mind, vague sorts of ideas. You say to yourself, ‘If I had my way, I’d do such and such.’ What I wanted to ask you about was, if you married me, would you be willing to go right away from here? Could you live up in the North, or the Midlands?”
I was taken aback. I had never had the least idea that he had any intention of leaving Hampshire.
“Judeth, there are such things happening there. Things that’s going to turn this country upside down. By the end of this century, spinning and weaving and making cloth, all that kind of thing, is not going to be done by one family in one house. Judeth, they are building places big as churches, where hundreds of people will work together.”