by Maria McCann
‘I’ll hollow it out just after the fashion of the plan,’ he explained to me one morning as we repaired a hut which had collapsed during the night. I passed him up a piece of turf and he went on, ‘It has to be deeper, and then widened on all sides and the brush and branches put in.’
‘Will you want pulling out afterwards?’ I asked.
‘Aye. Today I’ll finish the pit – there’ll be no getting out after that without help. Tomorrow I’ll put the stuffing in it.’
‘That’s a two-man job. You’d better catch it from below and I’ll take the weight of easing it down.’
He frowned. ‘I’m strong enough to lower boughs.’
‘The top man has to pull the other up,’ I reminded him.
Ferris nodded stiffly. I had already noted that since we were come to the common, he envied me my strength as he had never done in Cheapside.
‘After eating, then?’ I coaxed him. His face brightened, for early that morning, before starting on the repairs to the hut, we had gone round the snares and found three rabbits.
Hathersage’s firepit worked most excellently. He had banked up the earth in a ring round it, thus permitting air to get to the flames, yet not to blow them out. A trivet made by Harry expressly for this purpose swung over the pit and held Elizabeth’s kitchen cauldron. Hathersage toiled back and forth with logs, all over smuts like a sweep’s boy and with little Thomas Beste trying to swing from his shirt-tail. I wondered if, labouring thus, the young man thought back longingly to the boredom of Mister Chiggs’s house. The infant lay snorting on the grass, punching at the sun.
Ferris smiled on Elizabeth as we approached. ‘And how do the rabbits swim?’ he asked.
‘In their own gravy,’ she replied. ‘Jacob, you look to be dying of hunger. They are as good as ready, if you will call the rest.’
I set off to round up the other labourers; Ferris stayed to peer into the cauldron and tease Hathersage about his sooty skin; the words black as Jacob drifted to me along with the gusts of steam. I quickened my steps.
Hepsibah and the Domremys were in the tent, examining salt meat and going through the jars of beer to see how many had been broached.
‘The cheese goes nowhere, we should have brought more,’ Catherine was saying sadly as I entered.
‘There is something better than cheese waiting for you,’ I told her, smiling. Her fine skin turned from pink to dull red, and I perceived I had made an error. Backing out of the tent, I added, ‘Elizabeth expects you directly. Be so kind as to fetch the beer,’ and fled to seek the men.
Jeremiah and Jonathan were sorting the piles of stones into big and small. It was dreary work, and when invited to eat they left off without further ado. Jeremiah grinned at me and I noticed that the smile-wrinkles fanning out from his hot blue eyes went right back to his hair. What did he get from our experiment, I wondered: had he perhaps fled some ill-doing or debt? I had been slow to consider such things, except in the case of Botts. Now I realised that we did not know for sure why any man or woman had joined us. I could read nothing in Jeremiah’s bright gaze.
‘Harry is cutting wood,’ he offered. ‘Shall I go for him?’
‘My sincere thanks – where is Ben?’
The men looked at one another, then at me. ‘He’s not well,’ said Jonathan finally. ‘The sun’s got to him. What he needs is rest.’
I set off towards Botts’s hut. The others remained where they were.
‘Jacob, don’t!’ called Jonathan suddenly. He came running after me. ‘Let him be, eh? The more rabbit for us.’
I looked on his earth-brown face, the face of one who will buy peace at any cost. ‘I shall at least see,’ I answered.
But I had no need to see, for the stink of ale and vomit farted out from the hut even with the door closed. I spat. ‘How long has he been like this?’
Jonathan shrugged. ‘Maybe an hour. He was well enough at prayers, you saw him same as I did.’
Wondering how much drink he had swallowed, I made to open the door, but Jonathan laid his hand on mine. ‘What good going in now? He won’t know you. Shall we not eat?’
I hesitated.
‘Not eat your fine rabbits?’ he added. ‘Ben will wait.’
True.’
We walked back together companionably enough. ‘Is this the first time?’ I asked.
‘The first time he’s been this bad.’ He looked up with clear sad eyes. ‘The man’s lonely; that gives an opening to the demon of intemperance.’
‘He’s with all of us, all day! What more does he want?’
‘What every man wants, a particular friend, a woman, children.’
‘I have no woman, no more has Hathersage, or Jeremiah,’ I said hypocritically.
‘No; but you’ve a friend. It’s having nobody—’
‘Well, stinking of spew won’t help that!’
‘You are hard, Jacob.’ It was a plea, but there was no hint of cringing or truckling to me; he was not made of earth after all, this brown man.
‘Hard, because I am galled!’ I said. ‘I saw this coming, but Ferris would have his way.’
‘He’s not an easy man to refuse,’ said Jonathan. I turned to see his eyes fixed on mine, mild, inoffensive. For a second I thought there was pity there too, but then he smiled and shrugged. We walked to the cauldron in silence. Harry and Jeremiah were just emerging from the wood. Hathersage’s cheeks and mouth had been wiped clean.
There was a rough table made by Harry next to the cauldron, bearing a large dish, wooden bowls and some greyish cloths. I saw strings hanging over the cauldron side. Elizabeth pulled on one, and brought up a jug, the lid sealed with pastry; this she lowered onto the table while Susannah and Catherine pulled up another two, sealed in the same way.
‘Hot, hot!’ Susannah shouted to Thomas, who made to finger one of them as it swung near his head. Hepsibah took the little boy by the hand, pulling him back. The other women deftly handled the scalding vessels, in that way women have, and cut the pastry seals. A cloth came out last, with something green in it, and was laid on the grass to drain; there was rabbit in the air, in everyone’s nose and mouth. I felt a gnawing in me and secretly determined to eat my fill one way or another, for at times I received the same portion as Ferris and it rattled around my empty guts like a dried pea in a drum. The meat, done very tender inside the jugs, was scooped into the large dish and thence to the wooden bowls.
‘Did you call Ben?’ asked Elizabeth, flushed and hesitating over his dish. A drop of sweat from her chin just missed falling into the stew.
‘He is ill and wants none,’ I replied, thinking too late that a sharper man would have offered to take him his food. She pushed another forkful of meat onto the little heap in my bowl; Susannah handed out slices of cheat bread. The cloth was untied and I received some boiled greens: nettles and fat-hen. The company sat to eat, digging in their clothes for knives and spoons. I looked down at my spoon. It was the one Ferris had given me at Winchester.
‘Well done, wife,’ said Harry.
The rest joined in praising Elizabeth’s cookery.
‘Wisdom built me a good fire,’ said she.
Hathersage blinked modestly, heard Ferris say, ‘Brave Hathersage,’ and received the jar of beer from Catherine, which should have made him completely happy. There was quiet except for his gasp as he took a pull at the drink, and the clack of cutlery. Ferris sucked meat off the bones. I rose, picked up a pastry seal from the table and put it on top of my bowl: Harry did likewise. Elizabeth gave the remaining piece to Thomas to chew on.
‘If you please, the beer,’ I heard Ferris say. Hathersage promptly relinquished it. Ferris drank so deep that a man might think he knew of Botts’s condition, and was trying to forestall further indulgence by emptying the jar. Then he lay back on the grass, his empty bowl on his chest.
‘Is there any cheese left?’ asked Jeremiah. Susannah went off to fetch it; I sat up, ready for more food.
‘We should thank Christopher, too
,’ said Catherine, ‘since he snared them. You must set more snares, Brother Christopher.’
‘Or check them more often,’ said I.
Ferris smiled, lying with his eyes shut, lashes very fair on his brown cheeks.
After the cheese, I went with him to examine the sough. I was in a good humour, having for once eaten my fill. Piles of earth lay around the hole, nakedly black until the grass and weeds should clothe them.
‘See how deep the pit is,’ urged Ferris.
He was tipsy with beer and sun, wanting me to admire his prowess and to say I could not have shifted more soil myself. I looked down into the hole, which was disagreeably like an upright grave, but could not see how far off the bottom was, for it reflected sky and our peering faces, his head level with my breast.
‘It is draining already!’ he cried.
‘And how deep might that water be?’ I was not happy to think of him going into it.
‘Perhaps a few inches, Jacob. But all since yesterday!’ He took off his shoes, then his shirt, tossing it impatiently onto the grass. ‘Come back in a while, will you?’
‘You don’t want help to get in?’
‘Nay.’ He frowned; I had said the wrong thing. The spade’s still down there.’
‘Ferris, have a care! How will you—’
‘Look,’ and to my shock he leapt down the shaft.
I ran to the edge and saw him gazing up, laughing. ‘It’s just over my calves. Did I frighten you, Jacob?’
‘Indeed,’ I said, accepting my punishment for being bigger and stronger than himself.
He looked quite comfortable in his pit, his head some three feet below the grass.
‘How did you get out last time?’ I asked.
‘Harry pulled me.’ He measured the height of the walls. ‘It grows harder to throw out the earth. Jacob, could you draw it up?’
And so while Harry and the women continued with the plough, and Jeremiah knelt to set the carrots and onions, I lowered a bucket on a rope and raised the soil which Ferris scooped out from the sides of his burrow, hollowing out a full-bodied, narrow-necked pot.
‘That’s the last one!’ he shouted as I dragged up a sodden heap of roots and worms. ‘Next is me!’
I brought him up sitting on the bucket, the handle lengthways between his thighs, hands black on the rope. There was a scuffle at the lip of the sough as he kicked himself away from the edge. While he was crawling over the grass I spat on my palms: the inner sides of my fingers were creased and hot.
‘The lining goes down tomorrow, then it is complete.’ He dusted off his hips and arse. Water running off the legs of his breeches made two dark patches on the earth.
‘And very glad I am to see the end of the thing,’ I said. ‘An open ditch would have served.’
Ferris sniffed. ‘Shall we cut some wood for it?’
I took a saw and followed him hopefully under the trees but we spent the time until supper lopping branches. Then it was bread and cheese again, and afterwards bed, alone. I could only get to sleep by laying hand on myself and making believe that Ferris did it with his mouth.
In the morning Botts appeared, greasy and half stunned. None spoke to him of his debauch.
While I was not precisely in Catherine’s plight, I could scarce style myself happy. For a start, the huts were wretched: it was foul and brutish to sleep under turf and find worms dropping off the underside of it during the night, or spiders descending, and the bedding we had brought from London was soon damp. I spread mine on the roof of the tent every day we had sun, which took out some of the wetness but not the smell of earth. I tried not to think about autumn rains.
Then, our homes were without any real defences. True, they were raised up close to each other (a torment to me, for it meant every little noise on either side could be heard) and each hut had a kind of door knocked together by Harry and Jeremiah, but these were more hurdle than portal. I kept a knife always by my side at night, and told the women to do the same. Catherine and Susannah slept in one big-sized but for safety, with Hathersage one side of them and Jeremiah the other. Harry and Elizabeth shared a turf dwelling with their little ones. Jonathan and Hepsibah also had one roof over their two heads. As far as I could tell, Jeremiah, Botts and Hathersage lay in solitary confinement like myself.
I yearned after Ferris for days at a time. The morning we finished the sough, I stood for hours lowering branches and twigs to him as he stood half naked in the rising water, then pulled him out, supple and gleaming, and watched him put his shirt on.
‘You are shouting it,’ he said coldly, ‘remember we are observed,’ and walked away. Stung, I would not go after him, but stayed lying on my belly with my head hanging over the edge of the drain. Below me were wet twigs, and beneath these I could just glimpse the bigger pieces which I had supported while he positioned them. I wondered how he had balanced on the lining even as he built it, but of course he was more agile than I. For what seemed a long time I concentrated on the sough and its construction, shamming, even to myself, an interest, and all the while pressing my hips to the ground in frustration.
On occasion we went out at night and lay in the field, not the wood with its hidden foxholes and branches. In the utter blackness of a country night it was too easy to fall and make a deal of noise, which would infallibly rouse our companions. To take a light would have been madness. I would grow urgent first; he would bid me have patience, and this I suffered up to the point where it was as dangerous to leave him as to go to him, when I would glance up from digging a trench or cutting poles to find him staring at me, when after days of Jacob, hold off I would find him pleading, silently, at my elbow. That look, I thought, must betray us to any knowing watcher, and I would propose we go round the snares. Checking the places too often, filling the wood with our scent, we most likely lost us many rabbits. Ferris laughed at our strange piebald flesh – I was now very dark down to the waist, he all white but for head and forearms – but I saw nothing to laugh at in our coarsening into peasants. We would come back squeezed empty, sticky and pleasure-drunk, and for the moment it was enough; yet it never sufficed me long. I wanted to lie in a bed, for him to keep a hold on me all night as he used, to watch him sleep, and wake. Sometimes, furtive like one performing a guilty action, I would carry my washball to the spring and cleanse myself as best I could. The scent of rose and lavender came to me as keen as when I had first washed myself in Cheapside and put off my old rags. Now, however, I put my rags back on again and returned to my labour.
The bad dreams were grown more frequent, and I woke always alone, the Voice intimate and insistent inside my skull. Often, of late, I flew in the air over Hell and looked down on the damned, whose punishment it was to mine rocks with picks and spades. They flowed over the black surface like ants. From time to time a flame would lick up and burn some of them off. The rest kept digging.
The cow came. Her calf was thriving enough, and prettily spotted. Hathersage named it Fight-the-Good-Fight (soon shortened by the women to Fight) while the mother went by the less stirring name of Betty. The dairymaids were at last happy to go on with their old trade, even though there could be no cheese as yet; they inspected the beasts daily for any sign of sickness or injury, but found none.
Ferris and I were standing near the sough one day when Catherine brought some milk in a pot. I watched her cross the patches of corn and potatoes, holding her offering before her as if it were the best wine. The grass around the sough glittered in the searching light; though dew still clung here and there, the sun was already hot to the skin.
She went directly to Ferris and gave the pot into his hand.
‘Why, thank you Catherine,’ he replied and put it to his lips. I watched her watch him drink it.
‘Is there some for me?’ I asked. Catherine did not deign to look at me but Ferris stopped drinking and wiped his mouth.
‘Excellent,’ he said. She beamed.
‘Have some, Jacob.’ Ferris handed it to me. Catherine’s smile
stiffened.
I put my head back and let it down my throat. That milk was the first thing ever made me glad to be out of London, for there was neither chalk nor water in it, just its natural sweetness, thick with cream. I drained it to the bottom, and said, ‘I could drink that again,’ by way of praise.
‘You’ve drunk more than your share as it is,’ she said, snatching the pot from me. As she stamped off, Ferris and I exchanged smiles. Too late I looked up to see Hathersage, some distance away, watching us. He turned his head aside.
I had by diligent observation made a discovery of my own, namely that Hathersage was amorous of one of the Domremys, but he was so timid and backward I could not tell which; all he would do was to stay with them when he could, and show great courtesy to each, as if courting the two. When I imparted this intelligence to Ferris, he said, ‘Maybe he is courting the two, to see which will come out good,’ but I judged the man shy rather than sly. At first he had clung to Ferris and myself, but that had stopped very early on, before he fell in with the women, and methought he had understood something.
Now he coughed, straightened his garb and went after Catherine. At a distance, I saw him beg some milk of her. She spoke to him as if in anger. He looked to be soothing her, and she pointed in my direction. A pot of milk was handed to him and he drank it slowly, not throwing his head back as I had done but sipping.
‘See there,’ I said to Ferris.
He grinned. ‘Will he cut me out, think you?’
‘Not with everyone.’
‘Now,’ said Ferris, bending over the sough, ‘to business. How much would you say has run off into here?’