‘Look, I don’t mean to sound harsh, truly I don’t and I know that you’re anxious to… to fit in here but oftentimes you just have to accept that not everyone’s going to like you and that there ain’t much you can do about it.’ Leaning towards her, he reached to pat her hand. ‘So if, as you say, the two of you can’t rub along together, then don’t go stirring up trouble, just keep out of her way.’
In that brief moment, she felt as though she had left her own body and was looking down, seeing herself in the same way that perhaps he was. She looked small and beset by a tantrum. No wonder it felt as though he was humouring her, then: he was. He had patted her hand. So had Ma Strong. And so had Ellen. And if she remembered rightly, so had her mother. You patted the hand of a child. You did it to soothe their woes. Oh, good Lord: that must be how they all saw her. Then thank goodness for the good fortune to have seen it for herself.
*
‘Shouldn’t be surprised to see snow before nightfall,’ Thomas Strong commented, blowing on his hands as the family came out of church on Sunday morning and braced themselves against the wind whipping without pity across the hillside. In the adjacent field, a murder of crows choosing that moment to rise piecemeal from the pasture was taken by the same ragged gust, their melancholy caw, caw, caaaaaws seemingly in protest.
In response to her father-in-law’s gloomy forecast, Mary’s spirits fell; she was already finding the cold of Keeper’s Cottage almost as perishing as being in church but unfortunately, looking to the low, angry clouds, she was inclined to agree with his prophecy. The entire landscape seemed without colour today; as though the cutting north-easterly had sucked the lifeblood from every living thing. Risking a quick glance into the wind, she wondered just how many shades of grey there could be; the damp earth, bare of its vegetation, looked leaden, while the tussocks of grass being flattened into low mounds by the gale had taken on the sheen of gunmetal. Then there were the skeletons of the elms dotted along the wayside that, while appearing the colour of granite, could be heard cracking and creaking with the fragility of old bones; their bare and brittle twigs as pale as puffs of bonfire smoke. With the bitter wind stinging her eyes, she glanced further out across the valley to where the charcoal-coloured hedgerows had no choice but to faithfully define ancient boundaries under a sky that was now barely a single shade lighter than pitch. And among all of this greyness was the river, meandering slowly from one side of the broad valley back to the other, deprived – as if by an oversight of Nature – of a colour of its own and bound instead to reflect the capricious mood of the heavens, such that today it appeared as a ribbon of slate.
She turned her watering eyes aside from the gale and through the flicking rats’ tails of her hair, noticed how even the faces of the family members seemed to have been struck with an ashen pallor.
‘Oh please don’t let it snow,’ she remarked wearily to her mother-in-law.
‘He ain’t often wrong,’ Hannah replied, bending her head into the wind and reaching to retrieve the flapping end of her shawl.
‘I heard tell of places in Kent where folk are already knee-deep in snow. Never known it so early,’ Thomas Strong called across to her.
‘Aye, I’ve heard much the same,’ George replied, slowing his pace as they drew level with Keeper’s Cottage. But as they went to descend the steps, they heard Hannah’s voice raised above the buffeting of the gale.
‘Ain’t you two forgetting summat?’
Together, they turned to look at her but it was Ellen who grabbed for George’s arm and started pulling him onwards down the hill.
‘Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded…’
Skipping a pace or two to catch up, she caught his eye and shrugged.
‘Last Sunday before Advent: Stir-Up Sunday or some such. I’d clean forgot.’
‘Oh,’ she mouthed into the wind and resigned herself to following the family huddle on towards the farmhouse.
Once there, the women replaced their outer layers of clothing with pinafores while the men hovered in front of the fire and, without a purpose of her own, she looked around. On the table was an assortment of what appeared to be bowls covered with cloths – but it was the unfamiliar scent hanging in the air that she found most intriguing; faintly medicinal but fragrant – spicy yet sweet – and after the bone-numbing coldness of the church, comforting and warming. She sniffed the air, thinking how the smell reminded her of musty papers.
‘This better not take long, woman,’ Thomas Strong broke the silence as his wife removed the cloths one by one to reveal the array of ingredients underneath.
‘Every year you say that, my dear Thomas, and every year I offer the same in reply; the less you moan the quicker it’ll be over with and the sooner we’re done here, the sooner you can go about your business.’ The orderliness of everything on the table piqued Mary’s interest. Had she been anywhere but here, she might have asked what it was all in aid of but if she had learned anything in the last few weeks, then it was the value to be had from keeping her mouth shut when in doubt. And besides that, there was no need to add more fuel to Annie’s fire. The less she gave away, the less she could be derided. ‘Pass me the stirring spoon then, Ellen.’ It was Hannah again and she was starting to tip the ingredients into a vast earthenware bowl; an enormous mound of suet chopped into tiny, glistening shreds, then a heap of powdery grey flour, a mound of ragged breadcrumbs and a large saucer of coarse sugar granules. Nearby, Annie had started peeling a rosy apple from the fruit loft, but as the paring knife sliced cleanly between the skin and the crisp flesh, Mary noticed how she kept casting her eyes in the direction of Tom and George, propped side by side at the fireplace. ‘Grate in the nutmeg for me, Ellen. And Mary, you tip in them cherries and prunes, if you please.’ Doing as Hannah said, she watched Ellen’s gingery-coloured nutmeg gratings falling into the mixture, realising then that it was the source of the curious aroma. It seemed a calming fragrance, and careful not to draw attention to what she was doing, she inhaled deeply. At the other side of the table, Annie was now coring the apple, her eyes, though, still flitting now and again towards the fireplace. Thinking that she must be watching Tom, she looked in the same direction, puzzled to see that it was in fact George’s eyes darting away from Annie’s gaze. With a frown, she looked back at the table, where in the almost reverential hush, Hannah’s spoon was scraping rhythmically against the bottom of the basin and Annie was starting to chop the flesh of the apple, her attention, momentarily at least, back on the task in front of her.
‘So many ingredients,’ she heard George muse and turned to look at him.
‘Aye, ʼtis the oldest of receipts, son.’
‘But so many vittles for just a single pudden,’ he persisted.
‘Which is most likely why we only make it just the once a year,’ Hannah answered him evenly.
‘And it ain’t like we don’t deserve it,’ Tom now observed. ‘We work hard for what we eat.’
She closed her eyes. It was almost as though Tom enjoyed waving red rag at a turkey cock. And unfortunately, George wasn’t slow to be baited, either.
‘There are folk everywhere working hard to eat but many can’t even put a loaf on the table, let alone a figgety pudden.’
She looked back at the mixing bowl. Annie was scraping in the apple from the chopping board and Hannah was stirring it into the mixture but she found herself paying little real attention, her thoughts taken instead by her husband’s unlikely concern with the pudding.
‘Eggs then, Ellen, if you’d be so kind,’ Hannah directed, seemingly unmoved by George’s last remark.
Tom, though, didn’t seem about to let the matter drop,
‘So let me see whether I understand you correctly, brother. You’re saying that just because some can’t have it, we should all go without, too? Because I don’t see how that helps anyone…’
‘I was
n’t saying that at all, as well you know. I was simply pointing out the lavishness of it.’
Uneasy with the way that George seemed to be spoiling for an argument, she glanced at Hannah. Her lips were pressed in a straight line.
‘One of you boys make yourself useful and go an’ fetch me a glass of brandy.’
But in the event, in the stiff silence that followed Hannah’s command it was Will who went to get it, leaving Tom free to continue his querulous exchange with George.
‘See, when I hear you spouting such foolishness, I’m minded to fear for the rest of us,’ he was saying, his tone sufficiently patronising to cause several faces to shoot a look in his direction. ‘Only it seems to me that since you been working up that estate, you’ve started talking like one of them troublemaking Radicals.’
She lowered her head, willing her husband to ignore his brother but glancing to Annie, she was surprised to see that behind the fall of her hair, her face bore the smile of someone savouring a secret.
‘I don’t see how you’d know anything about it,’ George countered. She looked across the table. At least she didn’t seem to be the only one feeling awkward; Ellen was shifting uncomfortably, too. ‘I mean, what would you know about any of it?’
Oh, please, George, she willed. In a moment, surely, one of his parents would consider this discussion to have gone far enough.
‘Oh believe me, brother, I’ve seen enough to know that all their sort want is summat for nothing.’
Even Will, who had taken no side in the argument and was only now returning with the brandy, seemed to avoid looking at either of them. Without comment, he handed the glass to his mother and Mary watched as she poured it into the bowl, picked up her spoon and resumed stirring the stiff mixture, the blue veins on the back of her puffy hands distended from the effort.
‘Summat for nothing, eh?’ George was continuing regardless, his voice pitched levelly as though pretending to consider his brother’s statement worthy of consideration. ‘Tell me then, Tom; since when was a fair wage for a day’s labour summat for nothing?’
‘Come on now, you two, not while we’re about this, if you don’t mind,’ Hannah seemed finally unable to refrain from saying. ‘Why can’t you both just be grateful that this family gets a decent share of the Lord’s bounty?’
‘Oh but I am, Ma,’ she heard her husband agree and in anticipation of a riposte from Tom, she held her breath, grateful when the short silence was unexpectedly broken by the click of the latch as the door flew open and Tabitha burst in.
‘Nearly too late there, missy,’ Hannah remarked without looking up, even though the rush of cold air that accompanied her whipped at the cloths on the table.
‘Sorry.’ Bringing with her the smell of woodsmoke, Tabitha hovered breathlessly, dishevelled and pink cheeked, casting around at their faces. ‘Ooh! What did I miss?’
‘Nothing; it’s done with.’ Done with for you, maybe, Mary thought, watching as her mother-in-law cast her eyes at the family around her. ‘Now, need I remind you, one stir of the bowl and make your wish.’ Intrigued, Mary glanced over at George but he was staring across to the window and drumming his fingers on the mantel, his face rigid with displeasure. ‘Thomas, you go first.’
Despite complaining, her father-in-law heaved himself up from his chair, stirred the spoon precisely as instructed and then let it fall with a chink against the bowl. Next to take his turn was Tom.
‘Just the once,’ she heard Hannah remind him and saw her pluck the spoon from his hand before he had the chance to get carried away.
‘Yes, Ma.’
The spoon then passed to Will and then Ellen – there being little doubt in her mind what either of them would wish for – and then to Annie. But as she watched her stare into the bowl, her face looked entirely without expression – unreadable in fact – and remained that way even when she lifted her son to the table and guided his hand as he looked back and forth uncertainly between her and the bowl.
‘Make a wish then, lovey,’ Hannah suggested; but James had already pressed his lips firmly together so that when it became clear that they would remain that way, Annie set him back on the floor. Catching her eye, Mary extended her hand to take the spoon from her only for Annie to stare right through her and then reach all the way across the table to hand it to Tabitha instead. Feeling her cheeks redden, she stepped back and stared at the floor until she heard Hannah calling George over, when she risked looking back up to see her husband calmly stir the mixture and then pass her the spoon. Suddenly, her mind was blank. What should she wish for? Unbelievably, nothing came to mind: nothing at all. Dither any longer and Hannah would be staring at her, and so without making a wish at all, she simply stirred the pudding. What a thing to miss out on! Not that she believed in the power of wishing, of course. But on the other hand, no one could say with any certainty that wishing didn’t work; you just had to wish wisely. Across the table, Robert was the last to take his turn and then the room seemed to resume its usual hum of activity. ‘Thank you everyone. Off you all go,’ Hannah was saying. And then to Ellen, she added, ‘Pass me the two you-know-whats, love, and give me a hand with the boiling cloths will you? Let’s get them a-going.’
From across the room she saw George beckoning her towards the door, his face still taut with displeasure as he rammed his feet into his boots and stepped out into the yard. Behind him, she hopped on one foot, conscious that in his present mood, rather than wait, he would more than likely go on without her.
‘Come on, then. Before dinner time I want to go up The Stag an’ see if Ezra Sharpe’s about. He knows a group; some folk from over Micklehampton way and after Tom’s snide remarks in there I’m minded to join up with them and find out more about… well, no matter; there’s no need for it to concern you.’
She followed him towards the gate. What was he talking about now? What group and what folk? And who was Ezra Sharpe? Well, bother them whoever they were, because she was desperate to speak to him about Annie. After all, surely he couldn’t possibly have failed to notice her rudeness just now? But while tripping on one of her laces and opening her mouth to call to him to wait, her eyes came to rest on the sight of his sister-in-law somehow already standing in the lane. Feeling her shoulders slump, she nevertheless hastened on, eager not to miss whatever was going to pass between them.
‘I just had to tell you,’ she thought she heard Annie saying as she hurried forward, ‘how well I thought you showed up Tom and his selfishness.’
She frowned. Assuming that she had heard correctly, it didn’t make sense. Why would Annie favour George’s view of matters, when surely her loyalty ought to lie with Tom?
‘Wasn’t my intention,’ George was replying as she drew alongside them, noticing how neither of them acknowledged her presence.
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Well either way, it pleases me no end when you show him for what he is,’ Annie was replying, her eyes fixed on George’s and her hand coming to rest on his arm.
‘Well, be that as it may, I’ve things to see to, Annie. So if you don’t mind—’
‘I’ll see you at dinner, then,’ she heard Annie murmur as they turned to leave.
Striding on ahead, he simply waved over his shoulder; a peculiarly blithe gesture that given the tone of the entire morning left her feeling somehow outmanoeuvred. Wittingly or otherwise – it feeling beyond her now to work out which – Annie’s strange little intervention had wiped away her chance to discuss with George the earlier incident, since judging by his pace this was now clearly no longer the right moment. And plodding along in his wake, aware how firmly her teeth were clamped together, she came to realise that in all likelihood it was pointless trying to raise the matter with him again anyway, since it was quite obvious now that he hadn’t noticed a thing and probably never would.
Chapter 5
Tidings of Comfort and Joy
‘Ma! Ma!’ Mary called, surprised by catching a glimpse of her mother at
one of the nearby stalls. It was the last-but-one market before Christmas and with her business done, she had been about to head for home.
‘Mary, love!’ There was something heartening about seeing the delight that followed the look of recognition on her mother’s face.
‘Ma, what good fortune to chance upon you like this.’
‘Indeed, indeed. Although I did wonder whether I might just see you here this morning. Anyway, let me get a look at you; see how you’re keeping.’ Shifting the weight of her basket against her hip, she watched her mother folding back her scarf and then looking her up and down. ‘But you’re with child, Mary. Why on earth didn’t you send word?’
‘What?’
‘You’re with child, girl.’
Realising what her mother was suggesting, she felt her cheeks colour and glanced in alarm at the faces of the people trying to push past them.
‘I am not. And I can’t think what on earth would make you spout such—’
‘Are you certain? When did you last bleed then?’
‘I’ve not the least notion.’ Couldn’t her mother see that this really wasn’t the sort of place to be discussing something of this nature? ‘I lose track—’
‘You’ve lost track, all right. Think on it; you been sick of a morning?’
She shook her head and took a step backwards to let people pass.
‘No. Well, once, a week or so back but the milk had turned and I didn’t notice.’
‘Was George sick then, too?’
Clearly, her mother wasn’t going give up on the matter.
‘No, but he didn’t have the milk.’
‘Just the one morning was it?’
‘Ma, I don’t recall. One morning or two, I really don’t know! It was just a bit of sickness.’
‘All right, all right,’ her mother was saying more quietly now. ‘But just you listen to me a minute. You need to find out who in the village delivers the babies an’ go an’ see her. I know I’m right. I can always tell. And how other women don’t ever see it, is beyond me.’
A Country Marriage Page 10