Stone Cradle (13 page)

We all stood around for a minute, smiling and listening. When the peals stopped, Lilly said to Samuel, ‘Sam, go on in and ask the vicar. Ask him who paid for the church bells to be rung.’ She was
nodding at Elijah. I think she still thought he had done it but wouldn’t own up to it.

Samuel caught up with us as we were walking down the road. We were all off to the Old Norfolk for a celebration of wine and little cakes. ‘A gentleman who wishes not to be named,’ he said, as he drew alongside us, tapping the side of his nose.

William,
I thought to myself, for there was no chance my stepfather would ever do such a thing. And even though I was happy as anything to have my handsome new husband by my side, I felt a tiny twist of pain inside me, like a stitch but only momentary, at the thought of William’s sad, pale face, and what would become of him now I had left.

It’s funny how you can make yourself joyful when you put your mind to it. My wedding was nothing like I had fantasised about when I was a girl. I had always seen myself in a gown with a long train. I had always thought I would have months to plan it, to make favours and embroider my underthings with bluebirds. And somehow, Lord knows why, I had always pictured the church full to the rafters. But even though I had married with not a single relative to witness it, in a brown wool dress and a bonnet rented from the pawnbrokers, I was happy, yes happy, as we strode along Gas Lane and up past the Victoria Soap and Candle Works. We were a tiny party – and me hardly a beauty after all – but I was young and strong and smiling, and I paraded in front, arm in arm with Elijah, holding a posy. And people came to their doorsteps to smile back at us because everybody loves a wedding, however meagre.

I had made my own decision to run away from my stepfather and make a new life with Elijah Smith, and, for the first time in my life, I had done something for myself instead of being done to. It was a grand feeling. It was a blue-sky day, and cloudless. My feet hurt in my borrowed shoes but I didn’t care. I was a properly
married lady and the church bells had rung as I came out into the sun.

I won’t pretend that first year was all plain sailing. I sometimes find myself thinking that everything was fine and dandy between me and Elijah before she showed up but I know that is no more than a comforting falsehood and it does me no credit to rely on it. No, there were many things about Elijah that would have been difficult however it had gone between us.

I had no illusions about our lives together, how difficult it would be for us to support ourselves. Some might have thought me mad to leave a well-off farm and go back to the town – for whatever else was wrong in that sad house, there was always enough food on the table. I ate meat every week I lived there. I was a strong girl, as a result, and would have happily rolled my sleeves up and got work but as I was soon to be a married woman that was going to be difficult.

And the minute I
was
a married woman, I started wanting things in a way I never had before. On the farm, where I had scarcely owned the clothes I stood up in, it had never occurred to me to desire objects – well, I never came across any objects I desired. But once I was back in Paradise Street, in a city full of shops, well, I couldn’t help noticing that other people had things that I hadn’t.

Somewhere to live, for a start – and things to put in the somewhere. Even before we had our own little parlour, I started dreaming of a proper hair couch to put in it – forty shillings it would be, I said to Elijah, but if we settled for cloth it would only be twenty-five. A marble-top washstand for the corner of our bedroom – now that was my idea of luxury, to have a grand thing like that that was not even on display for visitors, but just for me and him. That was my idea of wealth, that was, to be able to afford something like that.

Oh, I did want a marble-top washstand. I think I thought my whole life would be complete if I had one of those. When I told Elijah, he rubbed his chin.

I couldn’t quite work out exactly what it was my new husband did for a living. Sometimes he had a bit of money on him and sometimes nothing at all. Either way, he had a confidence about him that reassured me we would get by somehow. He had told me he dealt in horses sometimes and that he did some hawking. He was certainly very good at fixing things and could turn on the charm all right when he needed to.

There was one small incident, not long after we arrived in Paradise Street, which tells you all you need to know about Elijah. We were having a light supper with Lilly and Samuel, and they had gone to some effort for us even though it was a small meal, putting out the best tablecloth and cutlery and all. Lilly had dished up in the kitchen and brought the plates into the parlour laden. As she entered, she said, ‘Sit down, the lot of you, let’s eat while it’s hot. I can’t abide a cold supper.’

We sat and she put plates down before Elijah and myself – corned beef fritters and cabbage in gravy. I saw Elijah frown, lift his hands to the edge of the table, and move it a little.

‘You’ve got a wobbly table leg, here, Mr Empers,’ he said to Samuel.

Samuel was unperturbed. ‘I have that, young man. I’ll get around to fixing it one of these days.’

Lilly had gone back into the kitchen to get the other two plates and overheard this as she returned. ‘I wish you would, Samuel. I’ve been on at you about it long enough.’

Elijah jumped to his feet. ‘I’ll sort this out soon enough!’ he declared, clapping his hands together and rubbing them, and blow me if he didn’t lean forward and whisk the plates from under our noses. Off came the cutlery. Off came the candlestick. Away went
the best tablecloth while Lilly and Samuel sat there staring at him. And he upended the table and fixed it there and then.

It was done in a trice, but all the same I could tell Lilly was none too impressed. She had a point. A cold fritter is not nice, after all.

When he had finished, Elijah righted the table in one swift movement and stood back with a flourish, looking at us all for applause.

Lilly rose stiffly and went to retrieve our supper.

Elijah looked at me, a little baffled. Had he not done a nice thing, for our friends who had been so good to us? Where was his congratulations?

That was Elijah.

I spent my wedding night, and every night for the next month, sharing a bed with Aunt Lilly, while Elijah went back to Gas Lane. Finally, in July, we were able to get the rental together and find our own house. We were lucky to get one in that area at all as East Cambridge had got mightily crowded in the eight years I’d been out on the farm. An old lady living at number twenty-two, just three doors down from Lilly and Samuel, passed away. The rental of the property should have passed back to the Corporation but the old lady’s daughter was still officially on the books even though she’d moved in with a friend on Norfolk Street. The daughter was a friend of Aunt Lilly’s and Aunt Lilly had had quite enough of me sleeping in her bed and her husband on the settee. She put a bit of pressure on, and number twenty-two was sub-let to us, furniture and all.

So Lijah and I had been married a month before we got our own bed. When we first closed the door of number twenty-two on everyone, the day we moved in, we stood and grinned at each other for a moment, before Elijah chased me shrieking up the stairs. We were so pleased with ourselves that what happened next was a bit noisy, if you get my drift.

It wasn’t the first time we had lain together, mind. We couldn’t wait that long. No, the first time was a few days after we were wed, at the Midsummer Fair.

The fair had come every June when I was girl and my mother and I would always go together – so there was no chance of me missing it my first summer back in the Garden of Eden. I pleaded with Elijah to take me but in a way that made it quite clear I would go with Lilly and Samuel if he didn’t.

So one bright afternoon, we dressed up as much as we could and set off down Maids Causeway, along with most of East Cambridge.

It was a fine thing to be promenading with my new husband. We passed lots of folk who remembered me from my childhood – I daresay word had got around – and so many stopped to congratulate us that we felt quite the swells by the time we reached Midsummer Common.

Not far past the first displays there was a man in an apron doing a hog-roast: two hog-roasts, in fact, as one was turning on a spit and another was laid out on a carving table with an onion in its mouth and its legs pulled diagonal, as if it was running. The hog-roast man was sharpening his knives, about to commence the carve-up, and a queue had already formed.

I turned my head away, not wanting to take too close a look, for I was hungry already and the sign said a serving of hog-roast was two and six for gentlemen and a shilling for ladies. I glanced sideways at Elijah as we walked on, hoping he might ask me if I’d like some, but he was looking carefully ahead, and I gathered by that we could not afford it. I gave a small sigh, and looked around for some amusement that was cheap.

Luckily for us, there were plenty of amusements where it was nothing at all to stand and spectate. There was Catch-a-Pig, where the men all paid tuppence to chase a piglet around and if they caught it and slung it over their shoulder they could keep it. I didn’t think a great deal of this, as I could remember being beaten
for failing to catch one once, so it didn’t seem all that amusing to me, and besides it was obvious the piglet had been greased with soap so nobody could get it. But we stood and watched for a while and pretty soon some fella fell in the mud and Elijah started roaring with laughter and I joined in and before we knew it the whole crowd was off. The young men started queuing up for the next go and I do think Elijah would have joined them if I had not prevented him.

What would a Midsummer Fair, or any fair for that matter, be without pigs?

Just past the apple-bobbing, I saw a large sign:
TOBY, THE SAPIENT
PIG.

Elijah didn’t seem keen on taking a look. He frowned, as if there was something sinister in it, but I dragged him by the arm and we stood behind the first row watching and moving our heads from side to side to peer between the others.

Toby the Sapient Pig was a large white with black patches and one black ear. He was held in a sty with clean golden straw, around which had been strewn a number of volumes:
The
Plays
of
William
Shakespeare,
I spotted, and some foreign-sounding names I did not recognise from my small amount of schooling.

Toby stood amidst these, ignoring the crowd. A man stood next to him, in a cape and top hat, beaming proudly as if he was presenting his newborn child for our delectation. ‘Ask me anything you like, ladies and gentleman!’ he declared. ‘Shortly I will allow you to question the Sapient Toby – as you can see, he is currently having a short repast.’ The pig was eating a book.

‘What’s he eating?’ a man called out from the crowd. The manner in which the question was asked did not ring of true curiosity, in my opinion.

‘Plutarch,’ responded the man in the cape. ‘He is fond of the Ancients.’

‘How was he discovered?’ called another.

‘Well, his first master …’ the man began, and then began spilling some nonsense about how he had been sold as a piglet to a schoolmaster who had taught him all he knew.

Pretty soon the crowd grew restless and the man clearly decided it would be politic to let the pig show what he could do. At this point, he withdrew a pack of playing cards and there followed some game, which involved putting them down on the straw and letting the pig choose one with his trotter and some young woman in the audience affecting amazement and shouting, ‘The very one I was thinking of!’

Meanwhile, a young boy went among us with a cap. I saw Elijah toss something in and was surprised he was contributing as he had a rather sour look on his face. ‘Come on, Rosie,’ he muttered, ‘let’s be off.’

We were turning away, when the man in the cape called out, ‘Now, you look like a highly intelligent young miss, if I might say so.’

I glanced about. A woman next to me hissed, ‘He means you!’

The people in front of us parted and I was ushered forward. I looked back at Elijah but he had crossed his arms with a mildly amused but still sour look on his face.

‘Young lady! Young lady! You of the lustrous locks. My Toby has eyes to read but can also appreciate human beauty. Do please honour me by showing yourself to him …’

I hope he doesn’t think I’m climbing in that sty, I thought. But no, he merely wanted me to stand in front of it while he scattered some pieces of card with letters painted on them in front of the pig. The pig snuffled in front of some of them and the man bent to the straw, picking up R, O, S and E.

He held them up, fanning them for the crowd to see. ‘And what is your name, fair one?’ he asked me with a small bow.

‘Rose!’ I said, looking round at the crowd, hoping that they would see by my genuine amazement that I was not in on the act.
A few people at the front clapped and I blushed as if they were applauding me rather than the pig. I looked for Elijah but could not see him.

The man thanked me and handed me a small posy and a piece of paper which had on it a poem that he said had been written by the pig himself.

I found Elijah when I worked my way out of the crowd. He was standing a few feet off, looking grumpy.

‘How did you do it?’ I asked him gaily.

‘Do what?’

‘Tell him my name.’

‘I didn’t do any such thing …’

‘Elijah,’ I said, ‘you were in on the joke, weren’t you? Don’t tease me now. Look I got a poem and a flower for my trouble.’

I planted a kiss on his cheek – but he really did look quite annoyed.

‘I tell you I didn’t.’ He brushed me off.

We stood in awkward silence for a moment. Then, all at once, his face brightened. He nodded. ‘Be right back, Rosie. Just seen a fella I know.’ And off he went.

So I was left holding my paper flower and my poem written by the pig.