His Brother's Wife

by Val Wood

  There was another man at the table and she thought this must be Noah’s brother, Fletcher, and wondered at the choice of name. He pushed his chair back and stood up. He was taller and his long hair lighter in colour than his brother’s, and he was frowning, though without the glowering expression that Noah wore.

  ‘You got wed without bothering to tell us?’ His voice was deep and angry.

  Noah grimaced. ‘Huh! Would you’ve come to ’wedding?’

  ‘Doubt it,’ his brother muttered. ‘But mebbe we’d have liked to be told.’

  ‘Well, I’m telling you now,’ Noah jeered. ‘Sit down, Harriet.’

  There was only one spare chair at the table and Harriet, clenching her lips, pulled it out from the table and sat down. She felt the heat of the fire at her back, which was very comforting. She nodded at Noah’s mother and then at his father.

  ‘How d’ya do,’ she muttered. ‘I’m Harriet M-Miles – or at least I was until this afternoon. Now I’m Harriet Tuke.’

  ‘How much did he pay you?’

  Harriet turned to Fletcher Tuke, who had asked the question. ‘What? Pay me – what for?’

  He gazed at her, his grey-blue eyes piercing into hers. ‘To wed him. You surely didn’t marry him out of choice?’

  Harriet put her chin up. ‘It was my choice, yes. I wasn’t forced into it, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘It wasn’t what I meant.’ His voice was steely.

  ‘Where’d you meet her?’ This time it was the older man who asked the question of Noah. ‘She’s not from round here.’

  ‘I’m from Hull,’ Harriet responded. ‘And I can answer for myself.’

  Noah folded his arms across his chest. Harriet thought that he was rather enjoying the situation.

  ‘Can you now?’ It was the woman’s turn for a question. ‘And did he tell you that he was bringing you to live in my house?’

  Harriet hesitated and licked her lips. She gazed at her mother-in-law’s stony expression. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘He didn’t. He didn’t tell me owt except that he was a farmer and lived near ’estuary.’

  Fletcher guffawed. ‘A farmer! Is that what he said? Heaven help us.’

  Noah’s father pulled off his hat, revealing a thick thatch of white hair. His eyebrows, still black, bristled. ‘She’ll be after your money.’

  Harriet began to laugh, a note of hysteria that she tried to quell as Mrs Tuke broke in, looking first at Harriet and then at Noah with cold grey eyes before saying, ‘Why would she marry you?’

  Noah didn’t answer, but Fletcher broke in. ‘Legal, is it? Not over ’broomstick?’

  Noah flared up. ‘Come outside an’ say that.’

  ‘I’m onny asking,’ Fletcher claimed. ‘But like Ma I’m wondering why she’d choose to marry you and come to live out here.’

  Harriet was astonished. There was such an undercurrent of tension, and something more that she couldn’t quite fathom, a dislike perhaps, as if not one of them cared a jot for the others. She thought of her mother and their relationship, how they had pulled together in adversity, each of them thinking always of the other’s well-being, and the loss of her brought sudden tears to her eyes, but no one noticed her distress, except perhaps Fletcher, who glanced at her and gave a slight puzzled frown.

  ‘Could I have a drink o’ water, please?’ she asked. ‘If it’s fresh.’

  ‘If it’s fresh!’ Mrs Tuke exclaimed. ‘We’re not in ’habit o’ drinking tainted water.’

  ‘Mebbe you’re not,’ Harriet retaliated. ‘But where I lived we had to be careful of what came out of ’pump.’

  ‘Tea?’ Fletcher interrupted. ‘It’s just brewed. Would you like a cup?’

  Harriet nodded, noting Mrs Tuke’s disapproving expression. ‘Yes, please.’

  Fletcher wove round the table to the open brick-built fireplace, which contained a four-bar iron range, the like of which Harriet had never seen before. There were racks and spits and a jack attached to the wall and a huge steaming kettle hanging from a hook. He reached up to a shelf in a wall cupboard and took down a cup, then lifted a big brown teapot from a side shelf of the range and placed both on the wooden table.

  ‘Milk?’ he offered and she nodded again.

  ‘If you’ve any to spare.’

  ‘Plenty,’ he said. ‘We’ve got our own cows. Didn’t he tell you that either?’

  Harriet shook her head and glanced at Noah who was still standing, chewing on a piece of loose skin on his thumb. He hadn’t told her anything. ‘Is there no supper?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ll have to share yours wi’ your wife,’ his mother spat out. ‘We weren’t expecting company.’

  ‘She’s not company,’ Noah roared, making Harriet jump. ‘She’s my wife and she’s stopping!’

  Harriet drank the tea. It was hot, but tasted strange, and she realized it was because of the milk. She was used to drinking weak tea on its own or with thin watered-down milk when they could afford to buy it. This was strong tea with globules of fat from the milk floating on top.

  Mrs Tuke got up from the table and made a great show of clearing away dirty plates and bowls and stacking them noisily on a wooden draining board at the side of a shallow stone sink. Then she took down two bowls from the cupboard and put them on the table.

  ‘Shift yourself, Mr Tuke,’ she snapped. ‘Mek room.’

  A large iron pot was hanging from one of the hooks over the fire, and taking a thick cloth in her hand Mrs Tuke lifted it down on to a shelf and then filled the bowls with thick soup.

  ‘Do you want bread?’ She directed the question to Noah.

  ‘Yeh,’ he said, taking Fletcher’s seat. ‘We both do.’

  Harriet ate under the scrutiny of Mr Tuke, who had moved his chair about three inches and sat with his elbows on the table, staring at her. Mrs Tuke poured hot water from the kettle into the sink, but Fletcher left the room and she heard the outside door slam.

  The soup was thick with onion and potato and a little meat and tasted hot and nourishing.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Tuke,’ Harriet said. ‘This is very nice.’

  Mrs Tuke turned round as if startled, or maybe, Harriet thought, she’s not used to being thanked.

  ‘How long have you known her?’ Noah’s father asked. ‘Where did you meet? Not in a brothel, was it?’

  Harriet took a breath. How dare he? But she noticed that Mrs Tuke stopped her rattling of the dishes and stood poised, waiting for an answer.

  Noah pointed a warning finger at his father. ‘Don’t you dare say such a thing ever. Do you hear?’

  The old man shrugged. ‘Well, why else did you go to Hull? There was no reason to.’

  ‘No. He needn’t have gone to Hull if he’d wanted a brothel,’ Mrs Tuke butted in. ‘He could have found one closer to home.’

  ‘That’s enough from you, woman!’ her husband shouted back at her. ‘Just shut your mouth.’

  Mrs Tuke put her hands back in the sink and said nothing more.

  ‘I worked in one of ’hostelries in Hull,’ Harriet told him. ‘That’s where I met Noah; and if you want to know about me, then ask me. I’ve got a tongue in my head and can speak for myself.’

  She didn’t mean to be rude and realized that this wasn’t a good start to her new life, but she was riled by his asking Noah questions about her and completely ignoring her. She heard a suppressed scoff from Mrs Tuke and so did Mr Tuke, who glanced keenly at his wife’s back, muttered something that sounded like ‘Sharp an’ all’, and then shoved his chair back from the table and went to sit in an easy chair close to the fire. She saw then that it wasn’t a shirt he was wearing but a smock over his breeches, the kind that she had seen in old books picturing country folk.

  Noah gave a sly look at Harriet as if he approved of her comments; then he finished his soup and he too pushed his chair away and got up. ‘I’ll go an’ mek sure we’re secure,’ he said. ‘Then I reckon we’ll go up.’

  Mr Tuke stared straight at Harriet, the
n, teasing his beard, gave her a leering grin. ‘Aye, do that,’ he said. ‘An’ don’t mek a row. We’ve all to be up early in ’morning.’

  Noah shook his fist at him and slammed out of the room, causing his mother to mutter, ‘They’ll have that door off its hinges.’

  ‘Do they always argue?’ Harriet asked her.

  Mrs Tuke looked over her shoulder. It seemed to Harriet that she must rarely be engaged in conversation or asked her opinion about anything, for she stood as if contemplating, twisting and squeezing a dish clout in her hands. When she spoke, her voice was cracked and bitter. ‘Were they arguing? I didn’t notice,’ and bent over the sink again.

  Harriet sighed. I don’t know if I can stand this. She felt nervous, anxious. What an odd family they are. I might hightail it back to Hull in ’morning. I’d go tonight but I’d get lost and might finish up in ’river.

  Noah slammed back into the kitchen again. He was carrying Harriet’s belongings, which she’d left in the cart. He held them out to her. ‘You forgot these,’ he said. ‘We’ll go up.’

  ‘I need ’privy,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Will you show me where it is?’

  He opened the door again to go outside. ‘You’ll need your shawl. It’s bucketing down wi’ rain.’

  She wrapped her shawl about her shoulders and scurried after him as he went down the yard and into what appeared to be a field, but it was so dark she couldn’t see where she was walking. He stopped at a wooden structure and opened the door.

  ‘Here. Can you find your way back?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But I’ll remember to bring a lamp another time.’

  She felt around in the darkness and located the wooden seat and sat with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. She groaned. ‘What have I done? In heaven’s name, what have I done? What kind of a madhouse is this? What kind of family have I married into?’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Before they went upstairs Mrs Tuke opened a door leading to a walk-in cupboard and came out carrying something heavy in a large brown paper bag. ‘Here,’ she said brusquely. ‘You’ll mebbe not want to share. I wouldn’t.’

  Curious, Harriet peered into the bag. It was a cream-coloured chamber pot. ‘Oh – thank you.’

  ‘Everybody empties their own,’ Mrs Tuke stated. ‘Except Mr Tuke and I wouldn’t trust him to not spill, but I won’t do anybody else’s.’

  ‘Quite right, Mrs Tuke. You wouldn’t want to.’

  ‘You can empty my piss-pot now, Harriet,’ Noah said from where he had one foot on the stairs. ‘That’ll be one of your wifely duties.’

  She stared up at him. ‘No, it won’t. It says nowt about that in ’marriage vows.’

  ‘And you might get a clout if you’re not careful.’ He turned to go up the steep staircase.

  Harriet glanced back at her parents-in-law, who were looking at her intently. Mr Tuke’s lips were lifted in a sneer, but his wife’s eyes held hers in a steady expressionless gaze.

  ‘First time he hits me,’ Harriet told them calmly, ‘I’ll hit him back. Just so that you know.’

  Mrs Tuke held her look for another brief moment and then said mechanically, as if she said it every night of the week, ‘Time for your bed, Mr Tuke.’

  The bedroom where Noah was waiting for her was large, but divided into two by a thin partition which ran from the window almost to the door. Noah’s bed was on one side and another bed on the other, each ‘room’ having half the window. A lamp was lit on Noah’s side of the partition.

  ‘Who sleeps in ’other half?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘Fletcher. Ma and Da have a room at ’other end of ’passage.’

  ‘There’s no door between us,’ she said.

  ‘No.’ He was already pulling off his shirt and unfastening his belt. ‘That’s why I went outside, to tell him to wait a bit afore coming up.’

  She swallowed. ‘It’s raining. He’ll not want to wait outside.’

  ‘He’ll not want to come up either,’ he grinned. ‘He’s in ’cowshed.’

  ‘You’ll have to fix a door,’ she said. ‘I don’t like to think he’s just on ’other side.’

  ‘He’ll not listen.’ Noah stripped off his breeches. ‘Get undressed, Harriet. Come on, look sharp.’

  She gave a deep sigh. Better get it over with, she thought, pushing the chamber pot under the bed. It probably won’t take long.

  Noah was demanding, as Harriet guessed he might be, and was quick the first time and fell asleep instantly, but he woke again a few hours later and rolled on top of her. She shushed him. ‘Your brother might hear,’ she whispered.

  ‘Let him,’ he muttered. ‘If he don’t like it he can sleep somewhere else, like in ’cowshed!’

  She was sure that Fletcher wasn’t sleeping. She heard the springs of his bed creaking as he turned over, so she knew that he must be able to hear Noah grunting and gasping and probably her low whimpering too, for Noah was not gentle, but rough and persistent. She tried her best to keep quiet and not cry out.

  The honking croak of a gaggle of geese flying overhead woke her the next morning and she turned over to find Noah’s side of the bed empty. She gave a tired sigh and wished she could sleep a little longer, but part of the bargain was that she would help on the farm. So what can I do, she thought as she poured cold water from a jug into a basin on the washstand and washed her hands and face. I’m a town woman; I know nothing about living in ’country.

  She dressed in her old skirt and warm jumper and looked out of the half window. It was still not quite light, but as she gazed across the yard and beyond a gated fence she saw a long meadow, a grey sky and flatland and a glint of brown water, which was the estuary.

  Downstairs Mrs Tuke was in the kitchen, stirring something in a pan over the fire.

  ‘Morning,’ Harriet said, and Mrs Tuke turned round, cast an expressionless glance at her and merely nodded before turning back to the ritual of stirring.

  ‘Can I do anything?’ Harriet asked her.

  ‘Like what? I’ve managed all these years wi’out any help.’

  Harriet shrugged. This was not going to be easy. ‘My ma and me, we allus shared our tasks,’ she said. ‘At least we did when we were both working, but lately – well, after Ma became ill, I did most things.’

  She knew she was more or less talking to herself as Mrs Tuke appeared to be totally uninterested, but she felt she had to make some sort of effort to bridge the gap between them. She could understand the antipathy that Noah’s mother might feel towards her; after all, for her son to bring a complete stranger into her home without so much as a by-your-leave was hardly tolerable.

  Harriet wondered how her own mother would have felt if she’d arrived home with a husband without a word; but then, she considered, I wouldn’t have got married without discussing it first. I’d have taken a courtship slowly.

  ‘What was ’matter wi’ her?’

  The question interrupted her reverie. ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘Your ma.’ Mrs Tuke faced her. ‘What was her illness?’

  Harriet shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she murmured. ‘She’d had a cough which settled on her chest.’ She put her hand over her eyes and pressed them. ‘Then she seemed to get worse. She had no strength, but – but I never expected her to go so fast. When Noah came to ’house …’ She paused as Mrs Tuke stood looking at her. ‘He said he’d wait with her while I ran for a neighbour – I couldn’t afford a doctor, you see – and when I came back, she was dead.’ She heaved a breath. ‘Just like that. I was gone onny a few minutes.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Mrs Tuke said. ‘Gruel’s ready. Men’ll be here in a minute. Except for Mr Tuke; he’s still abed.’ She gave a disparaging twitch of her mouth. ‘He’ll not be up for another hour.’

  Harriet sat down at the table. ‘Well, why not?’ she responded. ‘He can tek it easy when he’s got two sons to help him.’

  ‘They’ll not do it right for him,’ Mrs Tuke declared. ‘Never hav
e done.’

  The door was flung open and Noah rushed in. ‘Breakfast ready?’

  ‘Isn’t it always?’ his mother muttered.

  He gave a grin when he saw Harriet sitting at the table. ‘Morning,’ he said slyly. ‘Glad to see you up bright and early. Have you found her some jobs, Ma?’

  ‘No.’ His mother served them both a dish of gruel and put the pan back on to the fire, but lifted it off again as Fletcher came in. He nodded at Harriet, but avoided looking at her directly and sat down opposite Noah.

  ‘Da not up yet?’ he asked, as his mother poured the gruel.

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ she ranted. ‘When is he ever?’

  Harriet ate the thick and creamy gruel, but she felt a burning tension in her chest. She avoided catching anybody’s eye, feeling like a spare part that didn’t belong here, but she also felt that the simmering atmosphere was not wholly down to her presence.

  ‘Are you not eating with us, Mrs Tuke?’ she ventured.

  ‘No. I eat when it suits me.’

  ‘Ma doesn’t eat wi’ us,’ Fletcher told her. ‘Except at supper. She prefers to eat on her own.’

  When the men had finished breakfast and drunk a mug of tea, they both pushed back their chairs and left the table and went out again, and Harriet wondered at their manners. Neither of them had thanked their mother.

  She got up too and cleared the dishes and stacked them in the sink.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Tuke,’ she said. ‘Can I wash ’dishes, or is there owt else that needs doing?’

  Mrs Tuke gave a dispassionate shrug of her narrow shoulders. ‘You can let ’hens out,’ she mumbled. ‘And feed ’em some corn, then look to see if any of ’em have laid.’

  ‘Erm, where’s ’hen house?’ Harriet said diffidently.