As Meat Loves Salt

by Maria McCann

  ‘I’ll have a room warmed for you, Mr Cullen, and some water taken up.’ She eyed my empty plate and pushed the dish of meat towards me.

  ‘You are too kind, Madam.’ Though somewhat ashamed, I could not stop eating. It was more than I could do to rein it in.

  When we had finished she led us in a prayer thanking God for our safe homecoming. I bowed my head and wondered if God might indeed look lovingly on me.

  Ferris was first to go up and wash. His aunt sat gazing at me with her hands perched in her lap, her eyes eager as a young girl’s.

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘On a carpet.’

  She laughed, shaking her head. ‘But come, tell me! Have you walked?’

  ‘A carter brought us privily away.’

  Her face fell. ‘Privily—? You’re not in disgrace?’

  I shook my head. ‘He was sick of it.’ That ‘in disgrace’ of hers, after the brutal victory we had won, touched me by its innocence.

  ‘They say it’s almost over,’ she went on. ‘One time all the men and boys were crazy to go out, now folk are thinking more of the peace.’

  ‘Mmm.’ That would be the folk who had had a taste.

  ‘Were you at Naseby-Fight, Mister Cullen?’

  ‘Ferris was there.’

  ‘And was that where he got his wound?’

  ‘No, Winchester. Mine was at Basing-House.’

  ‘Yours?’ She got up and came over to me; I lifted the hair from my brow and saw her stiffen.

  ‘You must suffer greatly!’ she cried.

  ‘Not so very much. There are cuts in the thigh pain me worse.’

  I saw her eyes travel down my body until she came to the blackish blood congealing on my breeches. Her hand went to her mouth. ‘Lord have mercy on us! The surgeon shall come tomorrow.’

  ‘I think,’ I said, remembering the army surgeons, ‘that if the wounds were but washed, and cleanly dressed, they would do very well.’

  She promised to give me an excellent healing ointment she had.

  ‘And were the battles so savage as they say?’ she asked.

  ‘Christopher will have much to tell you,’ I said. ‘I would not spoil anything he wished to relate by saying it before he has the chance.’

  She nodded and said she would leave me in order to look me out some clothing.

  After she went I must have dozed, for I jumped as Ferris came back into the room, translated from soldier to merchant. The garments hung loose from his bones, but he was otherwise the picture of a citizen, right to the deep white collar. A sobersides. I stared at this man who like me had lived a life before the two of us had met up in the army. His hair shone; only the slashed face and coarsened hands suggested he had ever done aught but fold cloth and count gold. The hands would soften again, the scar fade. I could see him calling at Beaurepair to pay his respects to My Lady. She would have despised him – and perhaps ordered me to wait on him.

  He smiled uncertainly, gathering up the loose folds of his clothing. ‘Look here. The army has eaten me.’

  ‘You’ll put on flesh,’ I said.

  I went up next. The aunt showed me to a room where the girl had already laid a fire and made up the bed. She was, I thought, worth her wages, but then London people were said to be very yare and sharp, able to draw and roast a fowl before a countryman could catch it.

  There were towels by the tub of hot water, and a lavender washball. When I stripped off, the clothes were stuck to me in places, and crusted with other people’s pain as well as my own. I laid them in a heap and once off my body they looked like beggar’s rags. I scraped the washball over me and rubbed at the blood and sweat as best I could. The water ran red as it came out of my hair, and my feet were in a sorry condition, blistered thick. I went on scrubbing till my skin was sore, taking off the army along with the filth, except for those tender wounded places where I dreaded skinning myself yet again. The knuckles itched as I put my hands in and out of the hot water. When I had soaked and dabbed away the crust on my thigh, I saw that the cuts were as I had thought, not green or stinking but in a fair way to heal if only my blood-stiffened breeches were no longer pressing on them. That was great good fortune, and I again gave thanks to God. It might be that in His mercy He still valued my filthy soul, and would not cast me off just yet.

  I ran my hands over my body, wanting to know what I was become. Like Ferris, I was thinner, but dense and tough like hardened wood. There were small cuts and bruises everywhere, but these hardly counted beside the real trophies of the assault. My forehead was ridged under my fingers: I would let my hair grow now. Standing up to dry myself, I felt the wounds sting.

  The aunt had laid me out some clothes belonging to her dead Joseph, and with a little dragging at the buttons I was able to make them go on, though I feared they might give at the seams. Especially welcome were the hose. Though I had to put my feet back into the same old boots, they seemed less cruel now they no longer pinched my bare flesh.

  I had often remarked that new attire renders the wearer uncommonly happy, foolishly happy, for the gloss soon wears off and the man knows that it must be so. Despite my moralising, this was also the case with me. When I came down both Ferris and the aunt admired me in the husband’s garments, she saying that it was good to see them being worn and not eaten by the moths, Ferris that all I needed now was shoes. His face glistened with something oily which the aunt had spread on the injured cheek. She came to me and daubed some of it on my forehead also. It hurt, and smelt bitter, but her hand was gentle on me and felt like love.

  ‘He has thigh wounds,’ said Ferris.

  The aunt said that she knew it, and offered to dress them, but I did not like to give her that work and said I could very well do it myself.

  ‘Then you must take some of this unguent to your chamber,’ she told me. ‘Becs shall tear you some linen strips.’

  Ferris was not as happy in his own clothes as I was in another’s. I observed that he drooped his head, that he fiddled with the cold mutton bone and looked into the fire. His aunt watched him gravely and bade him go to bed if he wished, there would be time aplenty to give her his news.

  ‘Do you have my packet still?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. I’ll fetch it.’ She hurried out.

  I asked Ferris what packet that might be.

  He answered, ‘Things I asked her to keep.’

  The aunt returned with some objects tied up in cloth. Ferris put the bundle on the table and began tearing at the ribbon. The first thing he revealed was a heap of white linen, which I supposed to be padding: however, he laid it aside with great care, and I saw it was a woman’s nightgown, richly embroidered. Next came a gold case on a chain: he opened this up and stared into it as a man might gaze into a necromancer’s mirror. I strained to see it.

  ‘Here,’ he said abruptly and tossed it across the table. It struck against the wood, and I wondered he was not more careful, for it was very prettily enamelled.

  ‘Take care, Christopher!’ said his aunt, sounding as if she were more afraid for him than at any hurt which should come to the jewel.

  It was a pair of miniatures. On the left, a joyous Ferris I had rarely seen, full of defiance too: I would have wagered my life it was painted on the occasion of the marriage. The lips were parted as if to speak, the eyes full open and very straight at the onlooker: a man saying what he liked, to whom he liked.

  On the right, his Joanna. She took me unawares. For one thing, she was beautiful, with brown eyes and fine golden hair not unlike Caro’s, where I had pictured her sallow and plain. But while Caro’s glance was sometimes mocking, Joanna’s were the eyes of a saint. I had seen just such a look at Basing, on the face of Christ’s mother as her portrait blackened and shrivelled on the bonfire. As I closed the case, folding their miniatures together, she turned her pure gaze on her husband before her lips were pressed to his. I pictured their images forever kissing within.

  ‘Aunt painted them,’ said Ferris. I glanced
up in surprise.

  She nodded and smiled. ‘My mother was a limner before me. There was a man-limner in our district too, a very handsome one; he ruined a silly lass whose parents left the two alone. That brought us a deal of trade.’

  ‘Not from the married women, however,’ Ferris put in. ‘They found him a master of his art—’ he caught and kissed his aunt’s hand as she made to slap him, ‘practised and cunning in his technique.’

  ‘A very loving gift,’ I said, turning the case about. ‘And skilled.’

  ‘So I think.’ Ferris got up and put his arms round her neck. ‘She’s my mother and my father too,’ he said. His aunt closed her eyes, resting her cheek on his arm.

  I said, ‘You’re lucky to have her.’

  He started. ‘Jacob! Forgive me! You said once you would tell me your story after the siege, and we have never talked.’

  ‘Any time for that,’ I said.

  Ferris turned to his aunt. ‘Jacob lost his wife too.’

  ‘Well, you’re both of you fine young men,’ she said. ‘And if a body may say so – without seeming hard – you’ll marry again.’

  ‘You didn’t, Aunt.’ Ferris kneaded her hands. ‘Did you grieve for him a long time?’

  She laughed. ‘Well, we weren’t like you. Your grandfather chose for me – though yes, I was sorry when Joseph died. Yes.’

  They regarded one another an instant.

  ‘But I’ve no call for a new husband. Besides, he’d cut you out of my money.’ She wrapped her arms round him, and squeezed. Ferris remained solemn. The aunt went on, ‘I had never such grief as you, and provided you outlive me, I never will.’ She turned to me. ‘He didn’t eat for a week or sleep for a month. The minister could do nothing. But I wouldn’t let go of his soul. I hung on to him.’

  ‘The minister upbraided her, for being soft with me when I should be learning Christian resignation,’ Ferris said.

  ‘He thought it right, child.’

  They swayed back and forth, rocking in love. I remembered how Izzy and I would press our faces together, reconciled. Did we learn it from Mother? I could not recall.

  ‘Never was a better husband than you,’ said the aunt softly to my friend. ‘And be assured she knew it. Knows it still, in Heaven.’ She kissed his hair. ‘And now mayhap you should go to bed, that’s enough for your poor friend to listen to for one night.’

  I knew what was wanted and said I would go to my chamber. The aunt pressed the bottle of oily medicine into my hand and called to the maid, bidding her take up some linen strips torn large enough to bind a leg.

  I found my room pleasantly warmed by the coal fire and an embroidered nightshirt of Joseph’s laid ready. The maid knocked and entered with the strips, bidding me a good night as she went out. The nightshirt just fitted. I smeared the stuff over my cut thigh, feeling the wounds burn, and tied the bandage round it. Then I got between the sheets and stretched myself out in the shape of an X, arching with pleasure to feel the fresh lavender-scented linen on clean skin. My flesh felt heavy and supple as if dropping off my bones, and I fell asleep straightway without hearing the other two come upstairs.

  The next day I woke early. I had none of the pain in my hips that had plagued me in the army and the warm bed was unspeakably comforting after lying out, cold and wet, under the sky: I rolled and wallowed, the very picture of sloth. Despite this appearance I was full of vigour, so that when I heard people stirring in the house, I dressed and went downstairs. There I found Ferris’s aunt inspecting some wine bottles. Her eyes gleamed as she looked up at me, and I saw that any friend of ‘Christopher’ must be a favourite.

  ‘We will celebrate all the time you are here,’ she said excitedly. She was dressed in a plain dark robe, but her face shone with anticipation. It seemed not all citizens were gloomy.

  ‘I’ll bring you some breakfast,’ she went on.

  ‘After bad rations or none,’ I said, ‘good things to eat. A Paradise.’

  ‘Then be happy in it.’ She bustled off, and as she opened the door onto the stairs there came a clattering noise: the girl already cooking, down below. I had suddenly a great longing to see Ferris and talk to him, get used to his new ways, old ways. I climbed the stairs to his chamber, the one at the front where he had slept with Joanna, and tapped at the door.

  ‘Ferris?’

  Silence. I opened the chamber door and put in my head.

  ‘Ferris, we’re all dressed, I would talk with you. Will you come down?’ On his not replying I walked over to the bed, parted the hangings and reached with my fingers towards his face in the dark. I touched nothing but linen. Jolted, I ran my hand over the coverlet: it was entirely flat. A thought came to me. I felt between the sheets: they were warm, and on sniffing the pillow, I found the scent of his hair. Then he must have got downstairs without my knowing it, and be at this moment talking to Aunt (for I was already permitted that familiarity, to call her by that name). But when I got down again I found a bowl of caudle on the table, Aunt sitting by the fire, and no Ferris.

  ‘Christopher’s not in his bed,’ I said to her.

  ‘Ah.’ She looked down at the tiled floor. ‘He’ll be gone to the grave.’

  ‘What, before daybreak?’

  But she was right. He came in, damp and cold, while I was finishing up the caudle. His aunt bade him sit by the fire, but he came and sat opposite me.

  ‘I’ll get you some food,’ she said, ‘and if you don’t want to see me in a passion, you’ll eat it. It’s too cold to go trailing around in the dew.’ She laid her hand on his head and went out; I waited, hoping he would speak. He stared through me as he had done the night I woke him with Nathan. A bird called outside, over and over.

  ‘Ferris,’ I said.

  The bird continued to call as he slowly raised his hands and covered his face from me. Then he got up from the table and went back upstairs. I heard the slam of his chamber door.

  He was gentle with me that autumn, and on some days cheerful, but mostly there was a melancholy in him replaced the satire I had seen in Ferris the soldier. I came by degrees to see how, fleeing the solitary bed he had once shared with Joanna, he was run into the New Model – and how, the army having beaten him back at last, he was come home only to find himself still raw. Not even I could look on him and be jealous. Jacob Cullen was patient! – and I think I loved him during those months as I never loved friend before or since.

  He would walk each day, saying it helped him sleep, and I more often than not went with him. I took great pleasure in learning the names of the buildings, which were the most noted and so on. The tailor who came to measure us had told me that if I cared to call at his establishment I might see there a rare piece of work, a suit worked in slashed and perfumed leather, ornamented in gold. I did call to see it, and it was precisely as he had said, nay, more wonderful. Like all tailors, goldsmiths and suchlike he had a sharp eye for who held the purse, and had understood that Ferris paid for my garments. He could not have judged me likely to bespeak such a thing as a suit in leather; I could only think he was so proud of the craftsmanship, he must needs show it everybody. I told Ferris of this marvel, asking him what else was to be seen, and he showed me the fashionable streets: not only his own Cheapside, where the costly gloves and hose astonished me, but the Strand, Paternoster Row and Cordwainer Street.

  Ferris made faces, gasping and gaping in imitation of my lumpkin ways. ‘I never thought you would be so taken with these vanities,’ he said. ‘Are you pining after ribbons and feathers?’

  I laughed and said it was only that everything was new to me. He took me another time to London Bridge, and when I was several times gone up and down, jostling in the crowd and half drunk on the fascination of the place, he told me there were dead men’s heads there, stuck on poles.

  The weather was notably foul that year and we often talked of the men still fighting, their trials and victories. Ferris fretted at times about Nathan, whom he now wished he had brought away, and I bore with tha
t too. By mid-November he had long since told his aunt everything of his own campaign days that he thought fit for her to hear, and delighted in bringing back news from others. Any little thing about the Parliament or the latest fortunes of the army he picked up for her instruction or amusement, and with his natural courtesy got a great deal from the most unlikely men. In this way, he found near the end of November that Colonel Robert Blake had the Royalist Francis Wyndham under siege in Dunster Castle.

  ‘I had it from a fishmonger,’ he told Aunt as soon as we got home. ‘A letter came from his brother but yesterday.’

  ‘I never heard tell of Dunster. Would that be Devonshire?’ she asked.

  ‘Somersetshire. The West is all but fallen.’

  Aunt offered up thanks, and in the same breath a plea that the war might soon be over.

  However, I discovered he did not tell her of all his encounters. One day as we were turning out of Cheapside at the very start of our stroll, I saw an erect, dignified old man coming towards us, wearing a dark blue coat and red plumes in his hat. He saw Ferris in the very instant that Ferris saw him, and at once turned down an alleyway. My friend immediately walked faster and turned down the alleyway likewise.

  ‘Who is that? What are you doing?’ I asked. Ferris marched at such a pace as to make my legs ache though they were longer than his. The greybeard knew we were following him, for though he did not run, yet he walked so fast that his back rocked from side to side. My friend loped along, relishing the chase.

  ‘Ferris, for the love of Christ!’ I cried. Our quarry must have heard me, for he stepped out even faster and I saw Ferris’s face set like a dog’s just before it fights. I thought to catch him by the sleeve, but he must have sensed it in me, for he straightway broke into a run. I was not going to do the same, but instead stayed behind to see what would follow. What did follow staggered me. My friend ran past the old man – who flinched as he went by – and whipped round to stand in front of him, barring the way. At this the fellow turned, and saw me still bringing up the rear. He stopped dead. Then Ferris ran up to him and spat hard in his face. Not a word was spoken. My friend backed away, still glowering at the enemy, and circled round to me. The man made no protest. Wiping his mouth and lurching a little to one side, he scuttled through an archway and was gone.