As Meat Loves Salt

by Maria McCann

  ‘So it’s a bargain?’ he asked, opening his hand.

  ‘Done.’ I spat in my palm and clapped it to his. ‘Christ, Ferris! You feel like Fat Tommy. You’ll never build the New Jerusalem if you don’t eat more.’

  ‘I lack appetite,’ he said frowning.

  ‘You know the proverb? One shoulder of mutton drives down another. You were fatter when you left the army.’

  ‘You exaggerate.’

  He looked about ready to snap in two, but I bridled my tongue and studied the list which he had drawn up. There was one good thing: we had more people this time and in particular, more women. The writers were altogether various, and I noted their offerings with some interest. Ferris had a good clear tradesman’s hand, so that I easily made out what he had written; he stood in any case by my side, pointing out important details. I read as follows:

  Jane Seabright, prophetess, given to speaking in tongues.

  ‘No other calling?’ I asked. Ferris shook his head.

  Nathaniel Buckler, formerly weaver. Lost right thumb and now living with his sister’s family in London. Accepts any work that offers.

  Wisdom Hathersage, manservant to Mister Chiggs, some private savings; unable to meet save on the Sabbath.

  Jonathan and Hepsibah Tunstall, servants, one boychild aged two. Able to tend plants and trees, and to cook.

  Benjamin Botts, formerly army surgeon (Ferris’s eyes lit up as he pointed out this piece of intelligence), now working as a toothdrawer (my own eyes watered).

  Catherine and Susannah Domremy, sisters-in-law, Mister Domremy dead of the plague. Dairymaids. Readers of pamphlets. No children.

  Alice Cutts, her husband an ostler and dead at Naseby-Fight.

  Antony Fleming, employed to drive coaches to Durham and back, not a smith but knowing something of the mystery (Ferris again hopeful).

  Eunice Walker, claims to have great skill in cookery and cures; sweet-smelling paper, quill very fine, sealed with a device of a thorny heart.

  ‘A thorny heart?’ I asked. ‘Why do you note that?’

  ‘I fear she may be a Papist. Look here,’ and he showed me the seal. It was indeed a heart, but he had mistaken the rest of the device.

  ‘Those are arrows,’ I said, sniffing the paper, which breathed roses over the names of the other colonists. ‘Your Mistress Walker is a votary of Cupid, not the Pope.’

  ‘Well.’ He pursed his lips.

  Jack and Dorothy Wilkinson, just married, the man lately come from the war and the wife with child. Weaver. The letter written by the wife.

  Christian Keats, tailor. Able to bring stuffs. Lately widowed, three children, now with his sister-in-law.

  Ferris laid the letters one on top of the other, and then side by side. ‘Some of these will come out bad,’ he said thoughtfully.

  ‘Jane Seabright?’ I had taken against the ‘Prophetess’ at once.

  ‘Aye. And I fear Eunice Walker.’ He held up the letter and wafted it towards me so I again caught the scent of rose otto. ‘Does that bespeak a hardy, God-fearing woman who’ll work the fields with us?’

  I said there was cause to doubt it. ‘But we’re losing the women already. At least let us see them.’

  ‘The only way is to bring them all here together. If we are to work and live as a community, each of them must have the chance to meet all his fellows, not ourselves alone.’

  I hoped Wisdom Hathersage would be able to come, for I had taken a childish liking to his name, and he was the only one to mention openly that he had means. I pointed this out to Ferris.

  ‘We’ll get mostly folk with very little,’ he replied. ‘If a man is doing well, and content, why should he change? Our commonwealth will be but a common poverty to start with, all our riches still to strive for.’

  ‘Ought we to ask Hathersage to put in money, though others put in none?’ I asked.

  Ferris grinned. ‘Perhaps he too has none. Best ask a small sum of each, what think you? But this should be agreed by all of us.’

  He was happier than I had seen him since I attacked Rowly, and I prayed that this new company might prove more congenial to me than the old. Ferris and I were still not right with one another. I perceived that he was nursing some hurt, but could never get him to speak of it, and once, upon my pressing him, he had shouted, ‘Did I not swear, never to enter upon this subject again?’ as if referring to some vow. I could remember no such occasion, and thought one or the other of us must be subject to bouts of lunacy.

  I helped him draft and copy letters to all of these persons requesting them to present themselves the second Sunday in February (this was done for Hathersage) at the house in Cheapside at noon, there to meet their fellow projectors. A boy from next door was hired as messenger, and Aunt was informed that the house would be invaded by strangers.

  ‘Of what quality are they?’ she enquired, already fretting over what hospitality to offer.

  ‘Working people and masterless men,’ said Ferris. ‘Here.’ He passed her the letters. ‘Meat pasties and cabbage will do very well, and were they kings I see no reason to offer them more.’

  She took this meekly, pleased to see him more active and cheerful even if it meant the resurrection of the hated community.

  ‘And canary,’ said Ferris.

  ‘No,’ said I. ‘We don’t yet know how these people conduct themselves when they drink.’

  ‘Do you mean they’ll bang each other’s heads on the table?’

  That silenced me.

  ‘He’s in the right, Christopher. They can have beer, and all manner of cordials,’ said his aunt.

  ‘Very well. We’ll have the bookcase door repaired in case any of them are light-fingered.’

  I thought that was meant for me too, and resolved to shame him. The next day, having enquired of Aunt as to what tools there were in the house, I myself repaired the bookcase, something Ferris had not known me able to do. He watched me pick out the broken glass and fit the new pane, adjusting it with care.

  ‘A neat job,’ he admitted grudgingly.

  Resentment suddenly flared in me. ‘When you found me on the road that day,’ I snapped, ‘did you think me fallen from the sky? Since then I remain under your tutelage, but let me tell you there wasn’t a job – not one! – in my former life that I couldn’t complete to perfection.’

  ‘Perfection?’

  ‘Perfection! I was like to be steward when the old one died.’

  Ferris raised his eyebrows as if to say, Well! You never told me this before.

  ‘And had the fairest woman to my wife. There, an end to my bragging,’ for I was beginning to sound, even to myself, like Roger Rowly. I wiped my hands and began packing away the tools.

  ‘You’re proud as Lucifer,’ he said wonderingly.

  ‘Bad Angel,’ I shot back. Then I put away the tool-box and after went straight up to my room.

  Perhaps I should leave him. Our amity was grown so twisted and soured by errors and mistakings that I was hard put to see how it might ever come clear again. I wished I could start over from that first day, when I opened my dazzled eyes and found him giving me water. Then I fled to him from the prentices and he took me up again, and charmed me by sheer goodness: that was the time to go back to, and live in. Or perhaps even before that, sitting with Caro in the maze, no blood on my hands, no man’s kiss in my mouth. But there would still be Walshe, and the pamphlets. It was all pre-ordained, there had never been a place where I could have leapt free of the net.

  I came to myself with a sense of hopelessness and found I was looking out on the courtyard without seeing it. In place of my vision there stretched before me a blue-grey life of city winter and darkened rooms.

  Someone was shouting below. I stepped softly onto the stairs, and by straining could pick out Ferris crying imperiously, ‘Do it yourself! I don’t—’ (here I lost some words)’—but may I rot in Hell if ever I do it for you!’

  Aunt’s voice next, faint and querulous: she seemed to be pleading wi
th him. My friend grumbled something which I could not catch, and then, venomously, ‘I know what this is for!’ along with further angry speech which was lost to me. I had never heard them talk so to one another. I went back inside the room, sat down on the bed and covered my ears, miserably certain that my sin of wrath had infected the whole house.

  In the end Aunt called me and I had to go down. The supper was on the table; I descended and found Ferris deathly white and Aunt very red, but full of praise for my work on the bookcase door. Her nephew listened in a sulk until she asked him, ‘Is it not beautiful, Christopher?’

  ‘Perfection,’ he replied bitterly.

  She gave up and we sank into silence. The meat was stringy, and I chewed on the ox-tail as the wretched animal must once have chewed on the cud. Becs had never again subjected me to the eels, but I felt she had not forgotten. Now, picking gristle out of the hole in my jaw, I almost wished Eel Day were come.

  ‘Jacob, Christopher has something to discuss with you after supper,’ Aunt said into the tense air. I looked up in terror: surely this was the end, and he was telling me to leave.

  ‘Let me hear it now,’ I begged, as if the message would be less cruel with Aunt there, or as if he would not dare deliver it. Striving for calm, I heard my voice squeak like a lad’s. Ferris shook his head, as if warning me. He looked as afraid as I felt, which was some encouragement: perhaps, after all, he would not put me out – perhaps he had changed his ideas on the colony. That did not matter. Whatever he wanted, so long as I was there to share it.

  Aunt rose to clear the table.

  ‘Where’s Becs?’ I had not missed the girl until that moment.

  ‘With her family. I’ve given her a half-day. Open the door for me, Christopher.’ Aunt disappeared down the stairwell. Halfway down she called out, ‘There’s a spiced tart,’ her voice floating up eerily to the upper room.

  ‘Now,’ I said, turning to face him.

  ‘I can’t.’

  Those were the only words we spoke. Aunt reappeared bearing the tart, and with it mulled wine, full of cinnamon, which I drank deep for comfort, picturing it lapping round my heart. Ferris ended by eating three portions of the sweet pastry, which I was persuaded he did not want. His aunt served them up to him with the calm of the nurse who sees the child will soon tire and will end by doing what she wishes. He was unable to eat the crust of the last piece, and sat head down staring at it.

  ‘I’ll just take these to the scullery and then I’m straight up to my bed,’ said Aunt. ‘Goodnight to you both.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ we chorused. She gathered up all the dirty crocks and I thought how even women, those soft creatures, can be masterful at times; it is just as well God made them weak in body. I trembled as the door closed after her.

  We sat each staring jealously at the other. My face felt hot, my hands cold. Ferris got up and I rose also, thinking to move to the chairs by the fire, but he bade me stay where I was. Taking more candles, he lit them and lined them up, two near his left hand and two near his right, then seated himself directly opposite me.

  ‘Are we going to read?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why the lights?’

  He said nothing and I realised it was my face he wanted to illumine. After glancing at the table two or three times, and much opening and closing of his lips, he began. ‘I am to make you an offer. You know what it is.’

  ‘Aunt wants me to go?’

  He shook his head impatiently.

  I tried again. ‘You want—?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘So I’m not to be spared anything, not even saying it.’

  ‘You’ll have to, for me,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what your offer is.’ If it was not an order to leave, I was baffled, and his face, full of a hurt I could not interpret, gave me no help.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Since you will have us play the game, Aunt wants me to broker a marriage.’

  ‘A marriage!’ I gave a gasping laugh. ‘I’ve neither house nor money, what makes her think I’d wive?’

  ‘She has ways round that.’

  ‘I can’t marry your aunt!’

  ‘Come, come, Jacob! You know she’s not the woman.’

  It came to me at once. ‘Becs.’

  ‘My aunt sent her out purposely.’ He spoke in a cool, determined voice and sat back in the chair to observe my stupefied expression.

  ‘But she has no money either,’ I stammered.

  ‘And that’s your objection?’ asked Ferris, stern as the Recording Angel.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of myself.’ Though a lame answer, it was a truthful one: not avarice, but simple astonishment had spoken in me. ‘What I would say is, why will Aunt have me marry her when we have nothing to marry on? Where’s the, the—’

  ‘Profit?’

  ‘Aye! If you remember it was your word. Where’s the profit?’

  ‘Well, I can see where Becs’s profit lies,’ he mocked. ‘How often have we joked about it?’

  Again I felt her fingers tangled in my hair, pulling my head back, and heard her low laugh.

  ‘She thinks now is the time – she has talked with your aunt,’ I mused.

  ‘And why might that be?’ demanded Ferris.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Have you given her cause to hope?’ He leant forward as if to snatch at my answer.

  ‘Not I. But I’ve seen her more – forward – of late. Yes indeed.’

  We were silent a moment. I both saw and heard him take a breath before he went on flatly, as if reciting a hated lesson, ‘She is to have a dowry of twenty pounds, and you can live in with her as servant here.’

  I sighed, for it was a fair prospect to a masterless man already disenchanted with the colony. No more living on Ferris’s bounty. A good, kind mistress to work for; a pretty young wife, clever at what she did, who felt for me all that a woman may feel for a man. I would become a citizen of London and not lie in turf huts nor dig drains. But Ferris being gone, I was not sure what it would all taste of.

  ‘My aunt and I have fallen out over my telling you this,’ Ferris said. ‘She would have it come from me, as being more persuasive. I refused at first.’

  ‘But then yielded to her? Why was that?’

  ‘Something she said cut the ground from under me.’ He looked at me almost with hatred.

  I lowered my eyes and studied a mark on the table. ‘Yes? Something she said?’

  ‘She said it was no matter my refusing, if you didn’t. She as good as dared me to put the question.’

  ‘She is sure of my acceptance, then.’

  ‘You haven’t refused,’ he pointed out. I thought I heard scorn in his voice and looked up to tell him that poverty opens as many temptations to a man as do riches, but seeing his compressed lips, was ashamed to offer such an excuse. Instead I said, ‘Is your aunt doing this just to help Becs to a husband?’

  ‘She says she gains a man in the house, and that’s good against thieves if her nephew goes.’

  ‘If? You are already set on going.’

  ‘So I am; but Aunt imagines your staying would hold me here, too. That’s the root of the matter, though she never says it.’

  I remembered her eager quizzing of me from her sickbed, and especially the hint that Ferris and I were bound together, which had made my face so fire up.

  ‘But she is wrong?’ I asked. ‘You would go without me?’

  He nodded.

  I went on, ‘So I’d never see you again.’

  ‘Not never; I would come to see Aunt,’ he replied. ‘But I would meet you as her servant.’

  I pictured myself waiting at table, silent while others were privileged to sit and talk with him. I would brush his coats and lay out his shirts: that image so pained me that all I could do was repeat, ‘But you would leave.’

  ‘You’d have made your choice!’ he flared. ‘What would satisfy you – that I should give up the colony to secure you twenty pounds?’

  I hesitated, shamefaced
, for had there been no woman in the bargain, it was exactly what I did want: money, and the two of us in London.

  He went on, ‘And that I should drink to you at your wedding?’

  I pictured Becs and myself together, squabbling, but always over little things, while I rotted away at the core from love of Ferris.

  It was hopeless.

  ‘Here.’ I laid my hands on the table, palms up, and jerked my head at them, ‘put yours on top.’

  Ferris did not move.

  ‘Please,’ I said.

  He laid his cold hands on mine and I curled my fingers, folding his within them.

  ‘Now,’ I said, ‘I’ve neither accepted nor refused. Speak it out plainly, tell me and I’ll do it.’

  He cried, ‘Don’t put it onto me! Choose for yourself.’

  ‘This is choosing. Tell Aunt I will do whatever you’ll have me do, and that’s my answer.’ I kept hold of his fingers. We stayed there silent and motionless for some time, while the candles burnt down.

  At last he said quietly, ‘It is a lot to give up.’

  ‘Well. My history is bad enough without bigamy,’ I replied, at which he smiled but made no reply. The candles were half burnt. I took one and rose.

  ‘Goodnight, Ferris.’

  ‘Goodnight, Jacob.’

  As I climbed the stairs I could hear him behind me blowing out the rest.

  The Devil had again struck at me, not through the flesh this time, but through that love of money which is the root of all evil, and for once I had bested him. I would be neither bigamist, nor husband to a girl I did not love; instead, I would master my laziness and love of ease and I would help build the colony. I had vowed it before, but vows are but a paper study for a monument in stone, to be carved out with much sweat, perhaps not without injury, before the thing stands to be admired. To the colony I should go, and give of my best for it, and live kindly with my companions so that Ferris should see my worth.

  On entering my chamber I put down the candle and fetched the map from the shelf, being now of a mind to do anything, provided I did not like it, in order to lay up riches in Heaven. Though the printing was too fine to search by candlelight, I was ready to blind myself to find Abbot’s Gardens and so redeem my meanness concerning Samuels and his potatoes. As I unscrolled it, something dropped out, bounced off my shoe and skittered along the floorboards. There was a paper, too, rolled up in the map. I pulled it out, and pressed it against the wall behind the candle flame, to read the following: