by Penny Best
I don’t know what ‘rest’ he means, but I nod, wanting to make a start on the cleaning in case Edward returns and sees there’s nothing different, yet I don’t want to be away from those arms, those lips, that smell of him. I’m torn between being sensible about this and just throwing caution to the wind.
“I’ll help you make some tracks in getting the dirt away in case himself arrives back early.”
We’re that connected I don’t need to speak and I’m grateful for his kindness. It’s unusual for a man to offer to do a woman’s work, then we’re a unique couple. It makes me proud to watch Ernest help me. He batters around the kitchen with the brush and curses about the dog never being let in again. I dry my face in the scarf and curl my hair into it trying not to feel different when I know that I’m changed totally. No longer a virgin and not pure, there’s an ache in places I didn’t know I owned. Will people know that I’m now sullied? But I am not – I was gloriously taken and want to it to happen many times a day if it feels that good. Will Mammy be able to tell what I’ve been up to when I have to wrench myself from Fern Hollow and head home?
With hands on my hips I look around and think any woman would be mad to want to come back here, never mind stay. Did Ernest mean that he wants to marry me? It didn’t occur to me that I should save myself for a wedding ring. I only thought of taking Ernest. I should have been patient and dreamt of marriage. Whether I’m a fool or not, what’s done is done and Ernest still seems keen on me as he rubs at my bottom when he passes and tickles me when I’m at the sink.
“Right, I better be off to the three-acre field, before Ed comes back,” Ernest tells me from the half-door. “We’ll have to pretend all is the same and not let on.”
There’s no need for explanations. I turn my back to continue with the washing of the china cup and all the dirty dishes with the now boiled water.
“Minnie, it’s all going to be all right. You know that, don’t you?” he says opening the door letting in the breeze from the outside world. “I think you’re wonderful. Stop your worrying, do you hear me?”
The half-door clicks shut and until Ernest is with me again, I’ll harbour a big gaping wound that will gape and weep until he returns.
Chapter 8
I’ve laid the bread and dripping on the cleared table. The floor is washed. The chairs and stools are sitting out on the cobbled yard when Edward comes wandering up to the half-door. My heart leaps as I think for a brief moment it’s Ernest, but there’s no beard. I wave and resume my dusting of the sideboard.
“There’s some amount of work been done,” Edward says and does a low whistle. “Any visitors?”
He should know that not many ever attempted to frequent Fern Hollow since Mrs Tandy was the boss of the house and there’s not much community spirit for the two brothers who keep themselves to themselves year in, year out.
“No-one then?” he sighs and in muddied boots he heads for the corridor Ernest and I took a few hours ago. Holding out my arm to stop him, I point at the sodden boots. He returns to the door with a resigned look and says, “Good point, Minnie. I’ve messed the floor again.”
He apologises in a stooped stance, lowering himself and placing dirty palms together in prayer. It’s hard to be mad with that face. Edward’s playful features flirt with me and he removes a cobweb from my front. With a careful pinch he takes it from my breast and is all pleased with himself. There in those dark eyes is the look Ernest has, only it’s on Edward’s face.
An intense stare is between us, where he and I are the only people in the world. I always want both of them to look at me that way.
I blush and try to move past Edward’s big bulk to get the chairs or to find the brush to sweep up the dirt he’s brought in. There’s a cough and he says, “No sign of Ernest yet then?”
I shake my head, thinking how I constantly look up the yard to where I think Ernest might have gone to work and hopefully, he’ll be coming back soon.
“You’ve made great work here this morning,” Edward says moving one of the chairs and trying to catch my eye. “I know we only said a few hours in the morning, but if you need more to start with, I’m sure your mother will understand. Otherwise we’ll continue to live in squalor,” he laughs. “Ernest doesn’t even see the mess, although he’ll want you here all the time. But I know that a young girl has a life elsewhere. I’m sure you’ve boys calling?”
Both of my cheeks redden.
“Women don’t normally like us. Not the nice ones anyhow. Some are gold diggers and all the good ones are scared of us. Mother saw to that,” he shuffles in an embarrassed way. “We’ve been sheltered here for far too long. Not used to female company. It’s nice to have you here. Do you like being in Fern Hollow?”
Shrugging, I fill the teapot and urge him to sit. He takes bread and munches into it while speaking. “We hardly ever see a soul. Even Ernest and I don’t work in the same place on the farm. We fall out. It’s just ourselves here day in, day out and we’ve gotten odd. Like two left feet.” Wiping a sleeve across his mouth he talks on. “It’s grand to think of you here when we come in for a spot of tea. I know you don’t talk or nothing, but you’re a fine figure of a woman. I’ve always noticed you and thought you beautiful. And I like thinking of you being here every day.”
I smile as he continues. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m really a human being at all. Do people remember us, talk of us, care if we’re alive or dead?”
I feel sorry for Edward though I can’t say that. I clean the dresser, moving dishes into the water and placing all the papers and rubbish into an old sack for the fire. I want Ernest in the room too. Edward doesn’t worry me, but I know he’s trying to get my attention in the way a man gets a woman’s attention and I feel it’s disloyal to Ernest. I wonder if I could have both men for my own. I dismiss the idea as sheer badness itself.
“Will you think about us when you’re not here?” Edward asks me. “If I asked nicely might you think of us? Would you think about me?”
There’s a clatter of the dog’s chain in the yard and the noise of boots on cobbles. In strides Ernest with a bright handsome face. My tummy flutters. He whistles like Edward did. “What a fine kitchen. And what a fine wee woman we have!”
He stares and I hope all of this doesn’t bring on the weakness. With all the tension in the room, I feel woozy.
“I was asking Minnie if she thinks of us when she’s not here.”
“It’s her first day! I doubt she thinks of you at all, but this pretty girl in our kitchen should know that she is all that I think about.”
Edward stops slurping the tea and I hold my breath. I thought it was to be our secret and there’s Ernest blurting it out!
Edward looks at us both. “You’ve embarrassed the poor girl. She’ll not come back with you trying your charms on her. Don’t heed that idiot brother of mine, Minnie. He makes a play for all the women. Hence, they all stay away. Don’t you be rough, Ernest, and put this little dote off coming back! You know I’ve a soft spot for her.”
If I could speak, I wouldn’t know how to reply to that snippet of information. It makes me cross and jealous to think of Ernest flirting with other women. What women does Edward mean? Who might he have courted in the past? I never heard of anyone, but then no-one would gossip with me about such things. Who might have been scared off? I wish I could ask. The dishes are washed and draining dry on a cloth, so I head to get my coat off the hook by the half-door. I pull it on.
“You see now, look what you did, Edward!” Ernest says in a stern yet amused tone. I daren’t peek at him or he’d see my jealousy. “See you tomorrow, Minnie. And please don’t tell your mother that we made you blush like that.”
Both of my cheeks are on fire. I am having terrible thoughts. Hot with emotion, I wave without looking past Ernest’s boots. I want to remember him as he came in from the fields – full of life and lust for me. That’s the way I will imagine him until the morning.
“Goodbye, Minnie. Hurry back
to me,” Ernest calls from by the sink.
Edwards rushes up to open the half-door and see me out. He’s a fine man with shorter hair than Ernest’s and just as thick, black and shiny. Those pupils are large and fixed. His handsome smile looks down at me. “Don’t heed his teasing. Thank you,” Edward says. “I’ll be looking out for you in the morning.”
The dog wags its tail and without peeking, I know Edward is watching me. I don’t think about whether Ernest will tell him about us on the bed. I try to stop wondering if Edward is as nice to kiss as Ernest.
Surely he wouldn’t tell his brother about what we did? It’s our secret. I didn’t and couldn’t ask Ernest not to tell him. Crying most of the way home, I repeat like a heathen prayer, “Ernest loves me. I know he does. And Edward likes me a lot too. It will all be fine.”
My gut tells me that I’m a fool.
Chapter 9
Dottie’s grey hair is turning white at her temples, but Dottie will always seem young to me. She’s the only good reason I have to come home. “How did it go?” she asks.
I write Good but the place is a mess. Will take lots of work.
“I could help you?”
I scribble quickly No. I’ll manage. Thank you.
“You want those two strappin’ men for yourself!” she teases. I motion that she’s wrong, but we both know of the draw they have. Both twins are tall, dark and handsome like all the film stars who are worth watching.
“There’s something Heathcliff about them both,” she muses, helping peel the potatoes for the dinner. “Be careful that you don’t run yourself into bother…” She turns to check we are still alone. “Your mother would skin you alive for taking up with either of them. God knows they are handsome men.” The knife is pointed at me to ram home the point. “You do know that she and old Mrs Tandy had a full-scale battle once upon a time?”
I’ve heard rumblings of this story a few times, but never the full truth. I implore her with my eyes to go on. She looks over her shoulder and whispers, “Annie accused them of all sorts in her grief. Their mother took a pitchfork to our Annie at Fern Hollow and told her to get to blazes. I was only here at the time and so I said very little about it. I hope you being in Fern Hollow won’t open old wounds. That’s all I’m saying.”
I want to ask more, but with wet hands and a dinner to make, I cannot write, however luckily Dottie goes on regardless. “I’m surprised Annie is letting you up there at all. I suppose she knows that you need your own few shillings and only the likes of the Tandy twins would have a mute with seizures around them.”
Dottie doesn’t mean to be brutal. It’s just her way and she’s only saying the truth. It does sting, shadowing the daydreams.
“Fine specimens though, aren’t they?” she nudges me with a bony elbow. “Best lookers about here and the best land too. Be careful. They’ve not been to church in years and you’ve a gleam in your eye, missie! And remember women throw themselves at them. They say married woman have even been seen about Fern Hollow. Imagine being that brazen?”
I wonder what women she means. And I hope against hope that my fall from grace isn’t too obvious. She’s teasing me, but I know too that Dottie’s warning me off their charms. All this preaching from the Barren Widow is a bit late, even Edward has a twinkle that’s hard to ignore. The burning hole of guilt eats away at what little nerves I have left.
Mammy eyes me suspiciously when I get up to go to bed early. I kiss her cheek.
“Are you worn out? Those twins aren’t taking advantage, are they?” she asks after me. I shake my head and hope I seem sincere.
I lie flat into the clean sheets and this brings me easily into Ernest’s arms. He seems to understand my thoughts anyhow and I wonder from a few acres away can he feel what I’m imagining.
We’re in the stream at the very top of Dromore Hill, where the pasture meets heather and bog, where no-one goes unless they have the mountain sheep. We’re together in the wilds of life.
Ernest is naked of course, waist deep in the running water, finding his footing and holding out a hand for me to join him. The water will be cool, not cold like the rainwater from the roof he harvests in barrels to wash in. The sun will have warmed the ripples as we both immerse ourselves and swim to each other. I’d say there’s something wonderfully naughty about being without clothes in the open air and it would be even better with Ernest there too. He holds my head back to wash my hair and kisses me square on the mouth. Darkening my blonde hair, I float as he explores me, pinching my nipples and whispering, “My Minnie.”
There’s a bang of the kitchen door and Mammy shouts to Dottie about checking on, ‘the patient’. Mammy always spoils things. Just like Mrs Tandy did for the twins. I’ve no privacy, no space, no time to be a woman.
I convince myself that Mammy just might let me be with Ernest in Fern Hollow. It would solve the burden I am to her and I’d still be close by. She opens the door and peers in at my supposedly slumbering head. I know that she’ll never want to release those controlling clutches. Mammy would frown on the likes of Ernest. “Uneducated with a desperate reputation. I shouldn’t have allowed you go up there! I thought we had you well enough trained to keep your legs together but no!”
The door closes with a click and I cry thinking through the imaginary horror of her finding out.
Ernest is calling me… The pillow is soft and the heather on the hill smells sweet in the sun. It’s amazing where we go in our minds and while I’m in this place there’s nothing stopping us being together. Ernest wants to touch and kiss my breasts and lets me touch him where I need to. This drives me wild with guilt and desire. He likes to tell me what he’s doing when I close my eyes.
“Turn over, Minnie,” he says. I’m on my elbows with a bare backside in the air, the breeze finding me as he looks and fumbles. Kneeling behind me he enters me like dogs do, riding against my buttocks, holding on to my hips firmly as he thrusts. There’s no pain anymore and all is soft against the mattress and my cut is not muddied by the soft boggy ground. There’s no-one but us. I can tell that he’s close to being done with me. I rise up onto my palms, letting my breasts hang in the cool air. In the distance at the brow of the next hill I see a man watching us, a hand goes up to shield his view from the sun. Can he see us here by the stream? He must.
Then he calls with Edward’s voice, “Minnie, is that you?” and I rub on under my night dress. The passion tips out and I moan into the heather which is as soft as the pillow.
Chapter 10
The leaves are making dancing shadows on the lane up to Fern Hollow. The climb is steep in the warmth of an early summer morning. I fix my skirt and blouse umpteen times on the stride to be with Ernest. The satchel sways with purpose and the strap pinches. Dottie packed a mountain of freshly baked bread and scones. The butter I made will be melted with the hot morning, my fiery thoughts and the warm bread wrapped up beside it.
The dog is off its chain and she runs to greet me, licking at the satchel and my bare legs. The butter must have melted, but on I march. There are no men about and hope sinks into buttery socks. The kitchen looks much as I left it. The table clear of cups and plates and the floor un-muddied with a slight sheen to the orange and black tiles. The dog must’ve been told not to enter as despite the smell of the bread, she doesn’t nose in past the lintel.
The air smells of Ernest, but that’s all perhaps nonsense. I race to the lower bedroom to check if he’s there waiting. No, he isn’t. The bed is made, and a shirt lies over the brass bedpost. I sniff at it and soar away for a second or two. On the way up the corridor there’s another door ajar and in I go. The big window in the wall opposite the door is open. The bed in the centre of the room is unmade with the wardrobe at its foot open and strewn with clothes.
Walking in, Edward’s shoes peek out from under the large bed beside the empty chamber pot. Their mother’s features growl from a frame on the low stool by the bedside. A bible is propped there too with a slim book under it. I cannot m
ake out the title and don’t want to pry further. I notice that there’s no mirror and the washstand has pink flowers on it, perhaps inherited from Mrs Tandy. The window’s view is of the fields that stretch out to the back and side of the house. Edward can pull the flowery curtains and lord over all he owns. Fields roll out one after another and it is clear that the land is good and ripe for hay.
This might have been the marital chamber when Mrs Tandy’s husband could look out over all the land. Edward must’ve taken this big room over as well. I feel a jab of annoyance for Ernest. Left to linger in the room he’s inhabited since he was a child, while Edward becomes a man and takes the best of everything.
There’s the noise of hooves and someone calls out, but the dog isn’t barking. I take to the corridor and up to the kitchen. Edward’s there with turf for the range. I hide my disappointment that he’s not his brother.
“Good morning. I wondered where you were?” Out from behind me I pull his chamber pot. “There’s no need for you to empty those,” he says. “I emptied it already. It’s the least we can do for ourselves. Mind you, I think Ernest just throws his out the door.”
That sounds like something he would do, and I giggle.
“He’s in a foul mood, by the way.”
I set the kettle on the hot plate and try to manoeuvre around Edward. “Minnie,” he says. “I wondered now that we are alone, if I could talk with you?” I startle to a halt.
“It’s just,” he stops and sighs, “It’s just that I think despite you being mute, I think that despite that, you are a beautiful girl and before Ernest lays claim to you, I thought we might discuss…”
I flop onto the same stool as the day before.
“I know it is all very sudden to talk like this, but I also know that Ernest has an eye for the… Listen,” he stops and starts again. “I like you a great deal, Minnie, and I think any sensible man would make his feelings known as early as possible for obvious reasons. You come from a good solid home and have good breeding and you’re a Protestant.”