Wasn't that funny! She was always telling herself it was funny, how she could talk to the parson's wife openly, even more so than she could to her granny.
Sometimes she thought that the parson's wife and herself were about the same age, but Mrs Ross was all of twenty-six, she admitted so herself. She had never known anyone quite like her, life would be very dull without her, without their reading lessons and their talks. She wondered if she would dance the day. Perhaps not, not in the open. And anyway she mightn't be there for the wedding had taken place in Pelaw. Still, if the parson should happen to be there and Mrs Ross joined in the dancing, wouldn't that cause a stir?
For a moment she forgot the sickness in her heart as she imagined the straight faces and nodding heads of some of the villagers should the parson's wife forget herself so far as to allow her feet to hop.
She was glad she didn't live in the village, there was always bickering among one or other of them, mostly the churchgoers. She knew that Simon had come in for quite a bit of gossip because he had chosen a girl from so far away when all around him were, as her granda had said, lasses like ripe plums waiting for him to catch them falling.
She came to the burn. It was running gaily today, the water gurgling and struggling to make its way in between the rocks. She crossed it carefully because the water had risen slightly during the last few days owing to recent rainfalls, and was lapping over some of the stepping stones.
As she reached the further bank and bent forward to pull herself up on to the path she espied the head and shoulders of a boy half hidden by the bushes that bordered a small pool to the side of the burn. As she straightened up the boy rose from the bank but didn't come towards her, and she looked at him over the top of the bushes, saying, "Hello, Steve."
"Hi there, Tilly!"
"Youfishin'?"
"No, no, just sitting watchin'. There's a salmon here. I don't know how he got up this far."
"Oh!" She went round the bushes, her face eager. "Are you going to catch him?"
"No." He shook his head.
"No?" She was looking at him in surprise now, and again he said, "No; I just like watchin' him.
I don't think anybody knows he's here."
"I'm sure they don't else he wouldn't be here long."
"You're right."
She stared at him. His face was solemn, unsmiling. He didn't look like any one of the McGraths, he didn't talk like any one of the McGraths, he didn't act like any one of the McGraths. She had at one time wondered if he had been stolen as a baby, but her granda had disabused her of that idea for he remembered the day Steve was born because he had helped to carry his father home drunk from the hills. There had been a still going and the hard stuff was running freely.
"You goin' to the weddin'?" he asked.
"Yes." She moved her head once and while he stood looking at her she looked at him. He wasn't very tall for his age. He had a long face and sandy-coloured hair that looked strong, even wiry in parts for strands of it stood up straight from the crown of his head. His shoulders were thick but his legs looked thin, even skinny, below Ms moleskin knee pants. His movements were quick, jerky; yet when he spoke his words always came slowly, as if he had to think up each one before uttering it.
He didn't speak further, and so she said,
"Well, I'll have to be goin', else it'll be over."
"You look different the day."
"Do I?"
"Aye, bonny."
She half turned away, then faced him again, and she smiled rather sadly at him as she said, "Ta, thanks, Steve, but I don't believe you. I'll never look bonny "cos I've got no flesh on me."
"That's daft." His words came surprisingly quickly now, and he added to them, "You haven't to have loads of fat stickin" out of you like a cow's udders to be bonny."
For a moment her face remained straight, and then her mouth sprang wide and her head went back before drooping forward, and as she laughed his chuckle slowly joined hers.
"You are funny, Steve," she said, taking out a handkerchief and drying her eyes. "I didn't feel like laughkt' the day, but it was the way you said it."
"Aye"--he jerked his head to the side--"I can be funny at times, that's what they say, but mostly I keep me mouth shut, I find it pays."
His face was straight again, as was hers now, and she folded her handkerchief carefully and tucked it in the cuff of her dress before saying, "Well now, I must be off this time. Ta-rah, Steve."
"Ta-rah, Tilly."
She had gone beyond the bushes when his voice came at her in a hissing whisper, calling, "Don't let on about this fish," and she called back, "Why, no! I won't say a word."
But as she went on she wondered why he should be sitting watching a fish, especially a salmon.
He was a funny lad, was Steve, but nice. She had always liked him. She wished that the rest of his family took after him.
She had just reached the coach road when a brake full of people passed her, and they waved their hands and shouted unintelligible greetings to her. But the driver didn't pull the horses to a stop to give her a lift, and she stood where she was well back on the verge of the road until the vehicle disappeared into the distance because she didn't want to walk in the dust that the horses and the wheels had thrown up.
The sounds of jollification came to her while she was still quite some distance from the farm, and she slowed her step.
She wished she needn't go, she didn't want to see Simon, or his new wife. She had been thinking over the past week that it would be better if she never clapped eyes on Simon Bentwood again, but she knew this would be difficult because they never knew which day he would pop in with the monthly sovereign. That business was still troubling her; she even lay awake at nights now wondering about it.
As she went through a gateless gap in the stone walls and crossed the farmyard towards the front of the house she saw that the whole place seemed transformed. It wasn't only that there were a lot of people milling about, but on the lawn there were two long tables set in the form of a T, both weighed down with food; and there was a tent at the far end of the lawn and the open flaps showed the big head of a beer barrel and a laughing man busily filling tankards.
She stood shyly by one of the long windows that were on each side of the front door. Simon's father had had these put in some years ago at his own expense and had had to pay tax for doing it, so she had been told. As she stood looking on the gay milling scene she chided herself for wondering at this particular moment if the money for the windows had come out of the same coffer as the monthly sovereign, and she was telling herself to stop it, because the matter seemed to be getting between her and her wits, when she heard her name being called loudly,
and she turned to see Simon coming down the two steps that led from the front door. The next minute he was holding her hand and she was looking into his face. His eyes were bright, his mouth was wide.
"Where've you been?" he cried at her. "I thought you weren't coming. And why didn't you come to the church, eh?" He was bending towards her, his face level with hers. "Come"--he was pulling her now--"come and see Mary."
He tugged her up the steps and into the farm sitting-room to where his bride was standing in her white dress.
Tilly mouthed her good wishes as her granny had told her to. "I hope you have a very happy life," she said, "and never want for nothing; an'
that's from me granny and granda an' all."
"Oh thank you. Thank you." The words were polite, stilted. The lids blinked rapidly over the blue eyes and as the bow-shaped mouth moved into a wider smile Tilly thought grudgingly, She's bonny, I suppose, and I can see what got Simon. Oh aye. Her look went to where the white lace dipped deeply between the full breasts, then swept downwards to the tight-laced waist, and as her eyes lowered towards the floor her practical mind told her that there was all of ten yards of satin or more in the skirt of the dress.
"Oh, how kind of you."
She found herself nudged aside by the churchwarde
n and his wife, Mr and Mrs Fossett. Mrs Fossett was being gushing, as usual. "Oh, you do look beautiful, Mrs Bentwood. And what a wedding! what a spread! The village has seen nothin' like it for years." Then came the sting as it always did from Mrs Fossett's barbed tongue.
"'Twas ... 'twas a pity though you couldn't have been married in our church. Oh, that would have given the stamp to the day. But there, there. ... I would like you to accept this little gift. It's really nothing, although it's very old, it belonged to my great-grandmother."
As she spoke she was unwrapping a small parcel, and when the paper fell away it showed a flower vase of no apparent attraction.
"Oh, thank you. Thank you."
As Tilly looked at the bride she was asking herself if that was all she was ever going to say; but she was wrong, for now the new Mrs Bentwood led the way to a table at the end of the room and there, from amid a number of presents she picked up a fluted sugar basin and, holding it up for all to see, she said,
"Mr Sopwith himself called in earlier on and brought us this. It's a present from his wife." There was a pause before she ended, "It's solid silver; it's from their collection."
"Oh! Oh!" Mrs Fossett's voice was cool. She nodded her head, then said, "Very nice.
Very nice."
"Enough. Enough of presents for the time being. Come on, it's time we had something to eat... . Mrs Bentwood--" Simon now playfully caught hold of his bride's arm and in a masterful voice demanded, "Aren't you going to see to my victuals, woman?"
There was general laughter and the company in the room followed the bride and bridegroom outside on to the lawn. All except Tilly. She
remained behind for a moment and looked round the room.
She had often been in this room. She'd had her dreams about this room. It was a bonny room; it wasn't like other rooms in the house, dim because of the small windows. Old Mr Bentwood had known what he was doing when he'd had these windows put in.
She turned and made for the door and as she did so she saw Mrs Ross, the parson's wife, passing, and Mrs Ross saw her and, coming quickly up the steps, she said, "Hello, Tilly," and not waiting for Tilly's greeting, she added in a voice that was low and rapid and was backed by a mischievous gurgle, "Have you seen the vicar? I should have been here an hour ago but I got caught up with a class." Her voice sank even lower now and her eyes seemed to sparkle more as she brought her face close to Tilly's and whispered, "I've got three pitmen. Aha! Aha!" Her head moved in little jerks now. "What do you think of that?
Three pitmen!"
Tilly's voice was as conspiratorial as hers and her eyes shone as she repeated, "Three ... for learnin'?"
"Ssh!" The parson's wife now looked from side to side. "Not a word. They came of their own accord, said they wanted to learn their letters.
Of course it's dangerous"--she straightened her back--"I mean for them. Should Mr Rosier get to know they'll be dismissed their work. Dreadful.
Dreadful, when you come to think of it."
""Tis, 'tis awful." Tilly nodded vigorously. "Just because they want to learn their letters!"
"They were as black as the devil himself." The parson's wife was gurgling again. "They hadn't washed, you see. Well, if they had got tidied up to come to the vicarage someone would have noticed. But they were supposedly on their way home from their shift, as they said."
"But where did you learn them? I mean, where did you take them?"
"In the summer-house at the bottom of the garden."
"Oh, Mrs Ross!" Tilly had her hand over her mouth now. Then her face straight, she said,
"What about the parson?"
At this Mrs Ross cast her eyes towards the ceiling and said, "Heighho! nonny--no! skull, hair and feathers flying."
"He'll be very vexed?"
Mrs Ross now turned her head to the side as if considering, then said, "I really don't know, Tilly. I've thought about it and somehow I think he might even turn a blind eye ... seeing they are men. Oh, it's different for men. As you know he doesn't hold with women learning. I can't understand that about Geor ... Mr Ross, because he is wide you know, Tilly, very wide in his views."
"Yes, yes, I know, Mrs Ross. Yes.
I know. Oh my!" She looked past the parson's wife out on to the lawn as she whispered now. "They are sitting down at the tables. Should we be going?"
"Dear! dear! yes." Mrs Ross swung round so quickly that the skirt of her grey alpaca dress formed itself for a moment into a bell and it looked to Tilly as if she were about to run down the steps and across the lawn. This thought made her want to laugh; just think of the faces if the parson's wife was seen running across the lawn! She loved Mrs Ross.
She did, she did... . Could you love a woman?
Yes, she supposed you could, like you loved God. And she was the nearest thing she knew to God. Eeh! that somehow sounded like blasphemy. Yet she was.
Yes, she was; she was better and kinder than anybody she knew. What's more, she was of the class, and you didn't get much kindness from the class, did you? Not really. You usually had to work for the kindness you got from the class. And yet the class, in the form of Mr Sopwith, had been kind to her granda and her great-gran da by letting them have the cottage. But then her great-granda had worked for the Sopwiths from he was six years old, and her granda had worked in the Sopwith mine since he was eight. Still, he hadn't got the cottage because he had worked in the mine, because so many men worked in the mine and they didn't get cottages, he had got the cottage because he had dived into the lake in the bitter cold weather and saved Mr Mark Sopwith, as he was now, from drowning.
The lad had gone out in a boat when he shouldn't and it had capsized and he couldn't swim, and his father had been on the shore and stood there helpless, and her granda had dived in and brought him out almost dead. The young lad had survived without hurt, but her granda had always had his chest after that. Her granda shouldn't have been in the Sopwith grounds that day, he was after a rabbit and could have been had up for poaching, but old Mr Sopwith, who was religious, said that God had sent him, and for saving his son's life he had let him have the cottage free for as long as he should live.
Her mind was wandering. Everybody was laughing and shouting all up and down the tables and all towards the bride and bridegroom. Someone pushed a great chunk of hare pie in front of her. She didn't like hare, it was too strong, but she nibbled at it out of politeness.
She lost count of the time she sat at the table.
Everybody was talking, but she hadn't much to say.
Mrs Ross was now at the top table seated next to the parson, and she herself was stuck between Mr Fairweather and Bessie Bradshaw, the wife of the innkeeper. She didn't know Mrs Bradshaw very well, only that no one ever called her Mrs Bradshaw, it was always Bessie. She knew Mr Fairweather because he was one of the sidesmen at the church, but she had never liked him, he always sang the hymns louder and longer than anybody else, and his amens were like an echo, they came so long after the prayer was finished. But now he was laughing a lot; he'd had his tankard filled four times to her knowledge.
There was a tankard of home-brewed beer in front of her, too, but she had only sipped at it because it was bitter; it had a different bitterness to the herb beer her granny made, she liked that.
The whole table now seemed to rock to its feet as somebody cried, "The fiddlers! The fiddlers!" and there at the other side of the lawn two fiddlers were dragging their bows across the strings while the man with a melodeon began to pull it in and out.
She was glad to get to her feet, but as she was lifting one booted foot decorously over the form she squealed and almost jumped in the air; then turning angrily about, her face flushed, she stared at Mr Fairweather and in no small voice she cried,
"Don't you dare do that to me, Mr Fairweather!"
whereupon Andy Fairweather, the usually staid church sidesman, put his head back and laughed, saying,
"'Tis a weddin", girl. "Tis a weddin"."
"Wedding or no"--she backed
from him, her hand to her bottom"...y keep your hands to yourself."
There was much laughter from the bottom of the table and as the company made towards the far end of the lawn somebody chokingly spluttered, "Andy Fairweather put his finger in her backside."
"Never! Andy Fairweather? Ho! Ho!"
""Tis the wedding. 'Tis the wedding. There'll be more than backsides probed the night."
She wanted to go home, she wasn't enjoying this wedding, not a bit. But she had known she wouldn't before she came.
"Here, Tilly! what you looking so solemn about?" It was Simon, and once again he had hold of her hand. "Not a smile on your face. I saw
you at the bottom of the table. And what was that business with Andy
Fairweather?"
She turned her head to the side, then looked down as she simplified things by muttering, "He nipped me... my..."
"Oh! Oh! ... Andy Fairweather nipped your
... his Well! Well?"
As she looked into his face she saw that he was straining not to laugh; then his mouth springing wide, he said. "See the funny side of it, Tilly: Andy Fairweather nipping anybody. My! the ale must have spread right down to his innards for him to do that. Next time you see him in church claiming kinship with the Almighty, just think of him the day, eh?" He jerked her hand in his and she bit on her lip and began to laugh. "Come on, there's a nice lad over here, his people are neighbours of Mary's. Come on, give him a dance."
"No! no!" She pulled back from his hand, but he held on to her tightly, saying, "Look, I won't enjoy me wedding if I see you sitting with a face like a wet week-end. Come on." But as he tugged her across the lawn, weaving in and out of the company, his wife's voice suddenly arrested him, saying "Simon! Simon! Come here a minute."
He stopped and looked over the heads of the group surrounding her and, his chin up, he called to her,
"In two ticks, Mary. Be with you in two ticks." The next minute he had pulled Tilly to a stop opposite a young boy of seventeen.
"Bobby, this is Tilly, a great friend of mine. Now I want you to look after her, give her a dance.
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