A Country Marriage

by Sandra Jane Goddard

  ‘Tom is the true villain. I’m certain of it.’ From the corner of her eye she could just see George’s stare, but her only concern was that Tom not be allowed to get away with this.

  ‘And what on God’s earth would make you say such a thing? And here, in my home of all places, at that?’

  ‘Because…’ she started to say, the sight of Hannah’s expression making her hesitate, ‘he tried the same with me once—’

  ‘You? So it’s your contention now that he attacked you, too?’

  ‘Not attacked, least, not quite. But the point is that he tried to. In actual fact he tried on two occasions and the second time, he almost… did. It was only because I hit him—’

  ‘Did you know about this, George?’

  When Mary spun her head to look at her husband it was just in time to see him nod.

  ‘Course he knows! Do you think I wouldn’t tell him summat like that? Him and Tom had a gurt fight about it.’

  ‘Lottie’s injuries…’ she heard Annie starting to say now and saw her looking at Martha.

  ‘Much the same as yours used to be. Nowhere near as bad, mind but much the same, nevertheless.’

  ‘It’s him all right, then. And it ain’t no surprise, either. Think about it: that’s where he went after he set about me. ’Tis just the kind of cowardly thing he’d do having been denied his filthy bit of satisfaction.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ At Hannah’s shrill command she jumped. ‘This is my son you’re talking about and you’d do well to mind that, all of you.’

  Feeling her mother-in-law’s eyes scanning them in turn – as though defying them to say anything further – Mary found that she no longer particularly cared, and rising unsteadily to her feet, said, ‘I need some air.’ And aware that George had followed her outside, she turned sharply towards him. ‘You believe Robert, don’t you?’

  His expression was grim, rendering his face unfamiliar.

  ‘Mary, go back inside. Look after Lottie and Annie, and we’ll go and find him.’

  Staring after the two of them as they strode away, she wondered why he imagined she would do anything at all for Annie but sensing it better to keep her counsel, said only, ‘Well, I beg you; just be careful then, George…’

  *

  ‘So what are we going to do with Lottie when Tom comes back?’ Ellen asked, looking across the kitchen table to Mary and Annie.

  ‘What’s that?’ Evidently seeing their hushed conversation, Hannah came bustling towards them.

  ‘I was just wondering what we’re going to do about Lottie when Tom comes back,’ Ellen repeated for her benefit. ‘For certain she won’t want to—’

  ‘We should find a magistrate.’ To Mary’s mind it was the only conscionable thing, not that she was expecting Hannah to agree with her.

  ‘To what end?’

  ‘Because he… he savaged Lottie in a way that’s beyond excuse and he should be made to pay for it,’ she answered, desperate to rouse her mother-in-law from her apparent state of denial. ‘’Tis wrong in so many ways that I can’t begin—’

  ‘Look, maidy, no one could feel more sorry for Lottie than me, especially given her young age and especially since it was me that brought her into this house in the first place. But men are men, my girl, and can’t be held accountable for the way they’re made.’

  ‘But you said yourself not a half hour since: whoever did it will have to pay.’

  ‘That was different. And until Tom comes back, I for one don’t believe he did do it.’

  How on earth could her mother-in-law still think that? How, knowing what they did now, could she still take Tom’s side?

  ‘All right. But even with the benefit of the doubt, look what he did to Annie, here. Or don’t you believe he did that, either?’ She could feel the way that Ellen was eyeing her, and also knew without the need to look that both Annie and Martha were staring at her too, but by now she was too incensed by Hannah’s attitude to bother with polite respect.

  ‘Look, Mary, I ain’t defending him. Indeed, I used to think like you when I was young and not long wed but eventually you come to see matters like this in a different light. You can’t fight men and you can’t fight nature. Oh, I know as well as anyone how Tom’s always been overly fond of striking out but Annie’s a grown woman an’ she alone knows whether he strikes her with good reason or not. So maybe he’s wrong sometimes, we can’t none of us always be right. But just think about it; if you had him swing for what he’s done, what we believe he’s done, then there wouldn’t be a fellow in the land who didn’t soon deserve the same fate.’

  ‘That ain’t true and nor do it make it right,’ she replied without looking up, seeing now that in her mother-in-law’s eyes, Tom could do no wrong. ‘I know how I felt when he cornered me that day with all of his swagger… and his filthy suggestions and he barely even touched me. I’d have had him swing for that alone.’ She was even surprised herself, now, by how angry she felt on Lottie’s behalf and how bold it seemed to be making her.

  ‘Lottie couldn’t do anything, anyway,’ Annie pointed out, her tone striking Mary as despondent. ‘Believe me, I know how it is. She’s only fifteen so it would have to be her father that looks for justice.’

  ‘Well her father ain’t ever going to find out,’ was Hannah’s response to that.

  ‘And just how will you stop him finding out, once she goes home, all broke?’ Annie persisted, her eyes showing her distaste.

  ‘She ain’t going home, leastways not for some long time yet and certainly not afore she’s got over this ordeal. This happened in my home to someone in my care and I’m going to see that no one outside this farm – Martha excepted – ever finds out about it. If he decides there’s merit to be had from it, then it will be for Thomas alone to deal with Tom when he comes home.’

  ‘Huh. Perhaps it would be better if he didn’t come home,’ Annie replied, an observation that caused Ellen to flinch.

  ‘Talk like that don’t help, either,’ Hannah rounded on her, her finger aimed accusingly, ‘and you’d do well to mind that, my girl. We will look after Lottie and we will deal with Tom.’

  ‘And who’s going to look after me?’

  ‘You ain’t my concern. Now, I’m going up to wake Thomas an’ as you might work out for yourselves, he won’t be best pleased with any of this. So for your own sakes I suggest that you all keep out of his way.’

  As she swept into the hall, with the room seeming to reel in her wake, the women were left sitting in silence.

  ‘I’ll just go and see if Lottie’s gone to sleep,’ Martha eventually announced.

  ‘Aye and I’d better go and…’ Ellen added, getting up and going through to the scullery where Mary watched her starting to fiddle without purpose.

  Left alone with Annie, Mary didn’t know what to say. Her head felt as though it was bursting with rage and yet at the same time it seemed to be churning over events as though trying to make sense of them.

  ‘I’m sorry about what he did to you,’ she became aware of Annie saying flatly.

  ‘It weren’t your fault.’

  ‘Maybe not, but why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘George told me to keep quiet and anyway, what would you have cared?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. But I do know that what he dishes out ain’t nice.’

  ‘No,’ she answered equally flatly. Until today, she had almost managed to consign her ordeal to the furthest corners of her mind, but now the episode was as fresh as the day it had happened, although with the discovery of Lottie’s misfortune, she was aware of a new feeling as well; a feeling of which she was still trying to make sense. ‘It’s odd,’ she found herself trying to explain, sensing then that Annie might be the only person who would understand, ‘but because I… well, because I got away from him and Lottie didn’t, I feel guilty.’

  ‘That’s what he does to you. That’s why I told you I was sorry. It gets so that you become the one apologising for how he is.’

 
‘But that don’t seem right at all.’

  ‘Nor is it. But look at me: I’m testament to the truth of the matter.’

  ‘Shouldn’t no one feel obliged to apologise,’ she observed, glancing along the hallway and then lowering her voice, ‘for him being an animal.’

  ‘They shouldn’t, no.’

  She let out a long sigh. There was just so much about this that she couldn’t reconcile, on top of which there was now another feeling that she couldn’t shake either; a feeling of needing to understand the man who had done this. And so, despite the fact that she felt hot with shame to be even thinking about it, she steeled herself to ask, ‘Annie, forgive me asking you this if you will but why did he do… that to her? I mean, I know it wouldn’t have been any less awful any other how but why didn’t he just… you know…?’

  ‘Because it’s what he does.’

  ‘But why? It’s not normal.’

  ‘He’s not normal. Truly, I assure you, he’s not.’

  ‘So what made him pick on Lottie, then?’

  ‘Mary, I ain’t the least notion, although I’ve long noticed how his eyes go to the young and limber ones.’

  ‘And what he tried to do to her; is that what he does to you?’

  ‘It’s how he likes to take his pleasure, aye. He don’t want me at the front, like any normal man; he forces me to submit at the back.’

  ‘But that’s terrible.’ It was. It was just too terrible to contemplate. But at the same time as feeling utter revulsion, she also felt sympathy. ‘How on earth do you live with it?’

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised at the horrors you can get used to when there’s nothin’ you can do to change it.’ Stealing a look at Annie’s face, she tried to understand her apparent resignation but no matter how she considered it, she didn’t think she would ever get used to being treated in such a way. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Annie was beginning again, ‘I don’t just take it as he’d like. I’m not easy prey; never have been. No, I’d been looking after meself a long while before Tom Strong got started.’

  ‘But why provoke him then, if this is what happens?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I suppose because it ain’t in my nature to be compliant when I know summat ain’t right. Believe me, I know as well as anyone that I’d probably suffer a lot less misery if I just submitted. But being difficult is the one thing I can do to let him know that he hasn’t broke me… and as just about the only thing I can do is make him angry, then I do. I know it’s pitiful and for certain I come worse off for it but I doubt it’d be much less awful if I just gave in anyway.’

  ‘But can’t nobody do nothin’ about him; not even Pa Strong, I mean?’

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘Aye. Why does he get away with behaving like it?’ Seeing how Annie’s shoulders slumped and how she made no attempt at a reply, a frightening truth began to dawn. ‘He’s going to get away with it; with what he’s done to Lottie, ain’t he?’

  ‘Most likely.’

  ‘But it ain’t right; he shouldn’t be able to. I mean, I know you’re his wife and that’s… well, the way it is, I suppose, although that’s bad enough, but Lottie—’

  ‘At least he didn’t strike her.’

  ‘Pretty small comfort for her,’ she remarked and watched as Annie shrugged.

  ‘Look, believe me, Mary, I’d see him swing, too but as far as I know, there’s no law against what he does to me. Like you say, I’m his wife. And even if there was some or other law, well, you seen how his mother won’t hear a word against him, so no one would ever speak out. An’ the same’s true for Lottie; he’d just deny it. And who here could afford to say any different?’ She shook her head. ‘No, much as it grieves me to say this, the only way he’ll be stopped is when he’s dead and buried.’

  ‘I hadn’t the least notion.’

  ‘Why would you? Just thank the Lord that your husband’s different.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well make sure you do because I’d give anything to have your life.’

  With a shake of her head she regarded Annie’s shrunken bearing, finding it hard to believe that this was the same person who barely twelve hours since had strolled with such effortless composure through this very room and engendered within her a hankering to be blessed with even a fraction of her assurance. But now, in those few short hours, both Ellen and Annie had professed envy for her life; an existence that she herself found to be lacking in more ways than one.

  ‘You sound awful tired,’ she said, her discontent feeling selfish in the circumstances.

  ‘I am. I’m tired of all of it. I’m—’

  ‘Well, she ain’t asleep,’ Martha announced, interrupting their thoughts as she reappeared in the kitchen, ‘but I’ve done all I can for now. So I’ll call again on the morrow and then again over the next few days if needs be but in the meantime, she’s going to need looking after.’

  ‘Show me what to do,’ Annie said and in response to the looks of surprise from both women, added, ‘Look, if she’s got to be cared for, I’ll do it. But you’ll need to show me how.’

  ‘You sure you’re up to it?’

  ‘I’m fine. Takes more than a few blows from that animal to stop me doing what’s right.’

  ‘Fair enough then but you’ll need to send someone up the beech hanger for sweet woodruff. Then I’ll show you how to make the wash to bathe her with.’

  And as Annie pushed herself up from her chair to follow Martha through to see Lottie, Mary was left to lower her head to the table, realising that for her part, all she could do now was sit and wait – weary and anxious – to see what would happen when George and Will eventually returned with Tom.

  *

  ‘Any news?’ George asked, arriving at the farmhouse before dawn the following morning.

  His mother shook her head.

  ‘Nothing, son.’

  ‘You know, Ma, if I thought he was lying barely alive in a ditch someways, I’d go and look again but we searched everywhere.’

  ‘I know you did.’

  ‘And truth to tell, I can’t afford to lose a day’s wage on account of his—’

  ‘I know, son,’ Hannah said, placing her hand on his arm. ‘Maybe it’s like you said last night; maybe he’ll wake up somewhere this morning and make his way home again, right as rain.’

  ‘Aye, maybe he will.’

  Chapter 12

  Inquest

  When George had gone to work the next day, Mary tried to settle to her chores. Her mind, though, was so preoccupied with thoughts of Lottie and Annie that halfway through the morning she realised with a jolt that she had barely achieved anything at all. Sighing with frustration, she stood in front of the table, and staring down at the greyish mound of dough that she was supposed to be turning into a loaf, she pounded it with her fist. Yes, Tom had done some unspeakable things that were going to haunt them all for a long time to come – but she was beginning to realise that by constantly going over those events in her mind, she was avoiding facing up to something else that she also wished hadn’t happened: her encounter with Francis Troke and, more worryingly, what it had revealed about the state of her marriage. Ahead of her, she now realised, stretched a lifetime of lying obligingly beneath George night after night, except that now, she had the added burden of knowing that there actually was something more. From the very start, she had suspected that there was something missing but now she knew that it wasn’t just in her imagination because, for the first time, she could put a name to it: desire. It was a situation that ought to be simple to deal with; after all, having lived without it so far, she ought to be able to continue doing so, although in light of what she now knew, it was a notion that felt hard to accept. Pensively, she weighed the unappealing ball of dough in her hand and then, snapping from her reverie, dumped it into a bowl, draped the nearest cloth over the top, and stuck it on the mantel to rise.

  In gloomy and sluggish fashion, the long and cheerless morning dragged itself into an equally dreary afternoo
n, and needing to do something about the miserable mood hanging heavily about her like a damp fog, she snatched up her grizzling son, then wrapping his blanket about him, set off for a walk. A watery sun was half-heartedly attempting to break through a low and dismal sky, and without much idea of where she was heading, she trudged up the hill towards the cross, singing gently to Jacob in the hope that he would fall asleep and at least afford her some peace in which to bear her melancholy. But, recognising the form of Reverend Godfrey coming out through the lychgate, she slipped quickly out of sight through an opening in the hedge. Once on the other side, she ambled down the sloping pasture, her eyes drawn out over the patchwork of pale fields. Echoing across the stubble came the harsh ‘korr-krock’ of a pheasant, and although at first glance the trees still appeared to be in full leaf, here and there she could just make out early glimpses of autumn; a golden-brown sheen to the beech hanger at the edge of the estate, swathes of bracken turning russet on the common, and a shock of bright yellow diamonds on the birches in the valley.

  Eventually, her aimless wandering led her as far as the riverbank, where she stood for a moment and stared without seeing into the slate-coloured waters of the River Wem. If only things would go back to being normal. What, though, given recent events, was normal? She shook her head, recognising that whatever it was, standing there hoping for it was unlikely to bring it about. But as she lifted her head and started to turn away, something rippling at the base of the reeds caught her eye. After the rain of the previous night, the river, running swift and high, was lapping at something it had trapped against the bank. With only the mildest of curiosity, she took a few steps nearer and then, still not sure what it was writhing in the current, she took another. But as her eyes made sense of the weirdly distorted objects held firm in the reeds, she froze and then let out an ear-splitting scream, to be joined a second later by a shrill and frightened cry from Jacob.

  *

  ‘Now, you’re clear, all of you, what it is you’re to say?’ Mary heard Hannah ask and watched as she looked from one sombre face to another as they stood together in the kitchen.