His Brother's Wife

by Val Wood

  He frowned slightly. ‘About Amy?’

  ‘That too,’ she said. ‘We have to be prepared.’ Amy had been mooning about in her room for days, only appearing at mealtimes, and Melissa had told Christopher she was convinced that Laurence Wilkie would ask for her hand in marriage.

  Christopher rode first to Brough Haven to call on Mrs Marshall. She hadn’t been well the last time he had visited her and he’d had every intention of calling again, but somehow he hadn’t and now he felt guilty. He’d been fond of the old lady when he was a boy, and she and Ellen Fletcher, he recalled, had always been as thick as thieves.

  The Haven waters were choppy with a deep ground swell and he hoped that the bank would hold, or the flood would tip over and into the cottage, which was slightly lower than the path. The wind was getting up too, whining and whistling as it crossed the quivering water.

  Mrs Marshall greeted him warmly but he saw that she had deteriorated since his last visit; she was thinner, and he noticed that her hands were shaking. She offered him tea but he refused, saying he was going on to see Mrs Tuke and that he was expected home for lunch, but he sat down for a few minutes and said he hoped she would be able to use the fowl and asked if she would be able to cook it, for if not he would ask someone to fetch her and she could have Christmas dinner in the kitchen at Hart Holme with the other staff. ‘They won’t mind in the least,’ he told her. ‘If you would like to.’

  ‘Oh, no, Master Christopher,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t, thank you all ’same, and nor would they want me, not after all these years. No, I love my little house and I’m grateful to be here for ’rest of my days. Now, you’ll be going to see Ellen Tuke, I expect?’

  He repeated that he would and she seemed to consider, chewing on her lip and frowning. ‘I was going to ask you to tell her summat from me, but I can’t think what it was. Summat about that son of hers, but I’ve forgotten what it was.’

  ‘She has two sons, Mrs Marshall,’ he reminded her. ‘One of them is married, and I understand has just had a child.’

  ‘Ah! I don’t know if I knew that,’ she murmured. ‘About ’child, I mean. Perhaps I did; my memory’s not what it was. But that’ll be Mr Tuke’s son, not ’elder one. He’s gone away, seemingly.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Christopher frowned. ‘I don’t really know the sons. I’ve only met one of them. The bailiff generally calls on them.’

  She gazed at him from watery brown eyes and then nodded slowly and sighed. ‘I expect that’s so,’ she murmured. ‘That’s ’way it’s allus been. So Mrs Tuke says, though it’s not how she wants it to be.’

  He didn’t understand her meaning, and after enquiring again if there was anything she needed, which she said that there wasn’t, he took his leave of her, shaking her hand and saying he hoped she would have a pleasant and peaceful Christmas. As he was going out of the door he noticed that her woodpile was low and he gathered up some of the wood and brought it inside, placing it in the hearth. ‘I’ll have some wood sent over,’ he said. ‘You must keep a good fire; the weather is changing. We’ll have snow soon.’

  ‘Aye, that’s what ’fishermen say, so it must be so,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you, Master Christopher sir, and God bless you.’

  He mounted his horse and wheeled around and turned to wave goodbye. She was standing in her doorway watching him and lifted one arm in response, the other held stiffly by her side.

  He rode back along the road, reaching his gates and being very tempted to go back in for a warming cup of coffee, but he resisted and went on towards Marsh Farm, with the brace of pheasant firmly fastened to his saddlebag. The weather was bitterly cold and definitely worsening and he could hear the surge and swash of the tide, louder here than in the haven as it rushed up the estuary. Clouds were darkening overhead and it seemed more like night than midday. He hoped that the weather would be better tomorrow when their London visitors arrived, for they would be dismayed if they found that they would be confined to the house over Christmas.

  As he turned on to the track to Marsh Farm he noticed that some of the trees had been cut back, which he considered was a vast improvement. It had always been a dark and dismal place, with low branches obliterating the sky and hidden tree roots to fall over.

  He was almost at the bottom of the track with the farmhouse in front of him when he heard men shouting. He thought nothing of it at first as men often shouted instructions to one another; but then the voices became rampant, anguished and vociferous, as if in fear, and it was then that he heard the piercing cry of a woman screaming.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The atmosphere had not improved; the Tukes were not speaking to each other and from time to time Ellen asked Harriet to pass on simple messages to her husband rather than ask him herself. He generally just grunted in answer, but he had a knowing grin on his face which must have irritated his wife.

  Sometimes he leaned over the cot to look at his grandson, and although Harriet was grateful that someone was interested in the child she thought that as far as Mr Tuke was concerned it was a case of one-upmanship over Ellen; he was scoring over her, which to Harriet’s eyes was probably something new to him as generally his wife seemed to have the upper hand. Now she was the inferior one, which was probably the reason for her hostility.

  Noah looked at Daniel from time to time but didn’t hold him. When Harriet asked him if he’d like to, he said he’d have an interest in him once he walked and talked, not before.

  ‘But you must be pleased that you have a son,’ she pleaded in the privacy of his bedroom. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’

  ‘Aye, that’s why I married you, if you remember, and you took your time over it.’ He looked keenly at her. ‘And I’ll expect you back in my bed afore long.’

  ‘But we’ve onny been married a year,’ she protested and tried to ignore the fear she felt at the prospect of sharing his bed again so soon after giving birth. ‘Not every woman gets caught straight away.’ She tried to lighten the situation. ‘Folks’d talk if it was less than three months.’

  ‘I’m not bothered about what other folks think,’ he growled, which was contrary to the warning he had given her when Daniel was born. ‘Besides, nobody knows you round here, so what does it matter?’

  He began to undress and she went swiftly to the door.

  ‘Aye,’ he scoffed. ‘Scuttle off, but in a week or two I’ll want you back in here.’

  Harriet turned back from the door. ‘Do I mean nowt to you, Noah?’ Her voice broke as she spoke. ‘Have you no care for me at all? Am I just somebody to satisfy your needs?’

  He stared at her and for a second she thought she saw a hesitation in his demeanour, as if he hadn’t ever considered her feelings, but then he shrugged it off and said, ‘I telled you at ’beginning I wanted bairns to carry on at ’farm. I also wanted to be married afore Fletcher – not that it matters now that ’cur’s jiggered off; so what do you expect, sweet talk and kisses?’ He gave a grim grunt. ‘You’ll not get that from me.’

  No, she thought, closing the door behind her and going to her room, I know I won’t, but heaven forbid that I’ll finish up like Mrs Tuke. But I’ll not refuse him as she did Mr Tuke. I’ll give him his bairns, but one day I’ll escape and tek ’em with me. I won’t leave them to be bullied and unloved like he’s been. It’s mebbe not his fault that he’s ’way he is, but it’s too late for him to change. His heart is like stone and can’t be melted.

  The tension continued, and at the beginning of Christmas week she ventured to ask Ellen if they’d be having a proper Christmas dinner.

  ‘Why wouldn’t we?’ Ellen said. ‘As always. I expect Master Christopher will send us a fowl on Christmas Eve as usual.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ Harriet said. ‘We’ll have something special to celebrate this year.’

  Ellen stopped what she was doing. ‘Which is?’

  Harriet gazed at her in astonishment. ‘Daniel’s birth! A cause for celebration, surely?’

  ‘Oh
!’ Ellen turned back to the job in hand. ‘Have you thought of being churched and having him baptized?’ She paused. ‘Or won’t you bother? Noah wasn’t baptized: Mr Tuke wouldn’t allow it.’

  ‘I will,’ Harriet said softly. ‘I’ll have Daniel baptized just as soon as I’m able to walk to ’nearest church to see ’parson.’

  ‘You might find that folk won’t have you in their house if you’re not churched.’

  ‘Who’s going to ask me?’ Harriet answered. ‘I onny know Mary and them at ’manor. Do you think they’ll turn me away?’ She had intended going up to the house after Christmas to find out if her ironing job was still open to her, and whether she could take Daniel with her. Mary was doing the washing, which she said she could manage for the time being as long as she didn’t have to do all the ironing as well.

  ‘I don’t know about ’present mistress.’ Ellen gave a disparaging sniff. ‘Mrs Hart senior wouldn’t have had anybody back after marriage, let alone after giving birth, and neither I imagine would Master Christopher’s first wife, but this young mistress, well.’ She gave a condescending tut of her tongue. ‘Mebbe she won’t care as she’s no bairns of her own.’

  Or maybe she will, Harriet mused. She won’t want to risk any bad luck, especially as she’s desperate for a child; but she didn’t voice her thoughts, only wondered how Mrs Tuke came to reason what Melissa Hart would or would not do when she had only met her once.

  Harriet was now doing the second milking, and as Dora Two had produced her first calf in November and had plenty of milk she was drinking a jugful every day and Daniel was thriving because of it. There were fewer eggs from the hens and none from the ducks now that the weather was so cold, so Ellen had already commandeered one of them for Christmas Day to supplement whatever Master Hart might send, which had bothered Harriet as she had come to be fond of the ducks’ scatty ways and enthusiastic greetings as soon as she stepped out into the yard. However, she knew she would have to get used to the idea that all the stock represented fresh food on her doorstep, either for sale or for home consumption.

  Her worst day had been when Noah had asked the pig killer to come and slaughter the young pig they had been fattening up with vegetable parings, leftover food from their table, barley, and snails which had been gathered by the dozens in the wet ditches and added to the feed. Harriet thought she would never forget the sound of its squeals, and she hid in the house until the ordeal was over.

  The pig was cut open and hung in the barn until the following day, when it was butchered. Half of it was salted and hung in muslin sacks in Ellen Tuke’s larder and the other half cut up into hams and bacon and sold to neighbouring farmers to pay the butcher, with a little profit left over.

  I must remember how lucky I am, she’d thought for the umpteenth time as she swilled and brushed the bloody yard. If I’d stayed in Hull I’d have been homeless and starving or living in ’workhouse.

  Ellen had made a Christmas pudding in November, which was maturing in the larder, and Harriet had said she’d like to make an apple pie. She had discovered that she had a light hand for pastry, and also found rubbing the lard into the flour very soothing. For those few minutes she could forget the tension that was always simmering in the household. The apples were stored in a wooden box in the barn, high up on a shelf away from rats and mice, and had kept well. She said she’d make the pie the day before Christmas Eve, as Ellen would be building up the fire for a hot oven for a meat and potato pie of her own and the heat wouldn’t be wasted.

  Noah and his father had had several shouting matches over the last few days, as Noah wanted Nathaniel to get off his backside and come and help him down by the estuary bank. The ditches in the bottom field needed digging out as the high tide had covered the salt marsh and was flowing over the bank. Mr Tuke had refused, saying he had a bad back.

  ‘Bad back! You’re just a lazy old goat,’ Noah had bawled at him.

  He’d asked him again mid-morning when he came in for a hot drink, and Ellen had put her spoke into the argument by saying they should have done as Fletcher had suggested and opened one of the fields to take the excess water at high tide. ‘A large pond, he said,’ she reminded them, ‘and then use what you’ve dug out to build up ’rest of ’bank.’

  There was an uneasy silence, broken when Noah shouted that she didn’t know what she was talking about. Then he pointed a finger at Mr Tuke. ‘Get your behind off that chair and get outside! There’s a flood tide rising an’ I’m telling you that we’ll lose ’bottom field if it comes over. I can’t do everything myself,’ he bellowed, and with a great deal of huffing and groaning Mr Tuke pulled himself out of the chair and went into the back porch to get his rubber boots.

  ‘Tide’ll slow when it reaches us,’ he muttered. ‘It allus does once it’s in ’narrower channel, after it’s passed Hessle.’

  ‘I wish I could help,’ Harriet murmured after they’d gone, ‘but I don’t think I’m strong enough yet to lift a spade, let alone dig a ditch.’

  ‘It’s man’s work,’ Ellen muttered. ‘There’s enough for women to do in ’house wi’out going outside. They have this argument every winter, but ’bank’s not been breached yet.’

  But mebbe that’s because Fletcher was always out there with his sludge spade, Harriet considered, and recalled what he’d said about the Dutchman with the strange name.

  A sudden crack of thunder made them jump. ‘Thunder!’ Harriet exclaimed. ‘I never expected that. I’d better fetch ’apples afore it rains.’

  ‘There’s been a storm threatening all morning,’ Ellen muttered. ‘Bring me a couple of onions while you’re there. They’re hanging in a bag up on ’wall. I hope it doesn’t rain,’ she added, ‘or them two’ll be under my feet for ’rest of ’day.’

  ‘All right.’ Harriet went first to look at Daniel, who was sleeping in his crib, oblivious of the threatening storms both inside and out. She smiled down at him. He was filling out, his cheeks dimpling, and she was overcome anew by how beautiful he was, his long dark lashes sweeping his olive skin. I can’t believe he’s mine, she thought, drunk with love.

  She put on the rubber boots and draped her shawl over her head and shoulders, and carrying a deep basket she made her way to the barn. The wind was fierce, whistling round the farm buildings and howling through the trees. She bent almost double as it caught her shawl, threatening to rip it off, and had to battle to hold the barn door open as it was almost wrenched out of her grasp.

  She closed it behind her when she went in, even though it was dark inside, for she couldn’t risk its being blown off its hinges as that would mean another job for Noah and a tongue-lashing for her. She climbed up a short stepladder to reach the apples, putting her hand in the box and hoping there were no mice nesting inside; she brought out three large apples and dropped them into the basket and then looked round for the onion bag, which she saw hanging high up on a nail. She moved the steps and climbed up again, and was putting two onions into the basket when she heard the sound of shouting.

  ‘Oh no,’ she groaned. ‘Not again. Please!’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Noah yelled at his father. ‘If you’d given me a hand afore when I asked you, we might have contained it. Here.’ He tossed a spade towards him, but Mr Tuke dropped it and winced as he bent to pick it up.

  ‘I telled you I’ve got a bad back,’ he moaned. ‘But nobody teks any notice of owt I say.’

  ‘Nivver mind that,’ Noah bellowed. ‘Look at ’size o’ them crests, and now it’s damned well raining. Look. Damned sheep have got out. You didn’t shut ’blasted gate.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ his father snapped. ‘Sneck’s faulty. You should’ve fixed it.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ The rain was lashing down and Noah wiped his face with his hand. ‘Harriet!’ he shouted, spotting her outside the barn through the driving rain. ‘Try to get ’sheep back up.’

  He saw her wave a hand in acknowledgement and put her basket back inside the barn door, then turned back to h
is father who was just standing there by the bank watching the rising waters as if mesmerized.

  ‘It’s no use,’ he was muttering. ‘There’s nowt we can do. It’s just us against ’estuary. I’m telling you, that ’tide will slow. It’s covered ’salt marsh, I’ll give you that, but it won’t come any further in. I’ll bet you that ’water’s no more’n a foot deep. I’ll prove it, if you like.’

  Noah put his hands to his head in despair and looked towards the middle channel where two sailing barges were tacking to avoid the sandbanks which were so numerous in the Humber and altered the water channels and the flow of the tide as it came up from the river mouth.

  ‘You don’t listen, do you?’ he snarled at his father. ‘You never listen to owt anybody says. You sit all day long in that chair and nivver tek any notice of what anybody’s saying. You’re wrong! I’m telling you that ’water’s deep and it’ll come over.’

  His father stepped on to the low bank so that he was taller than Noah and looked down at him. ‘Just who am I supposed to be listening to?’ he jibed. ‘Not you, not your ma—’

  ‘Who isn’t my ma, from all accounts,’ Noah butted in. ‘How’d that come about? Didn’t want you in her bed? Rejected you, did she, so you had to go elsewhere?’ His voice was mocking and offensive.

  Nathaniel Tuke turned slowly towards him. ‘Why, you – whoreson, how dare you of all folk say that to me? Me it was who sired you and brought you home and told her to treat you as her own.’

  ‘But she didn’t, did she?’ Noah bellowed, his throat tightening, his voice hoarse. ‘I was allus nobody. Fletcher was ’important one. I nivver stood a chance, not wi’ either o’ you.’ He creased his eyebrows as if suddenly aware of what had been said. ‘Whoreson? What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Fletcher? Hah!’ His father gave a derisive snort. ‘I could tell you a tale or two about him and no mistake, and as for you …’ He stepped back and searched wildly for a foothold. ‘Whoreson, that’s what you are.’ He cackled with laughter and strove to regain his balance. ‘If I should tell—’