A Country Marriage (9 page)

*

Leaving Hannah and Ellen to set up their stall, George and Mary headed towards the livestock enclosures where, with the ripe humours of a score of farmyards hanging thick in the air, reluctant animals were being herded into the wattle pens; close scrutiny being paid by farmers in the mood to buy and the pedigree and quality of stock being talked up by those who had come to sell.

‘When I was a little ʼun, Ma used to bring me into town on market day to sell our eggs to Dunne’s the Baker,’ Mary said, skipping a couple of steps to keep pace with George’s stride.

‘Aye?’

‘But by the time I came old enough to bring them in on my own, I remember thinking how the market seemed smaller than it did before.’

‘Most likely because it was,’ she heard George saying as he stopped abruptly in front of her to avoid trampling a piglet making a run for freedom in a whir of tiny pink legs. She looked up at him. ‘When I was a lad, the cattle pens stretched all the way down Broad Street, well beyond Abbey Place.’

‘So it
was
bigger then.’ Following his weaving path through the people milling around the Butter Cross, she didn’t think he had heard.

‘Aye most likely it was. But these past few years have been lean ones, bringing the end for many a good trader. If I put my mind to it, I could most likely count at least a dozen faces that ain’t here any more.’

A memory of the two labourers at the wedding randy and their rambling discussion about wages and unrest came back to her but she set it aside, all of her concentration being required to keep George within her sights in the narrow and crowded walkways. Darting into any space big enough, she shadowed his progress between the wattle pens, suddenly glimpsing the distinctive cap of a fowl dealer from whom her mother had previously bought birds.

‘That’s Jim Cobb over there,’ she called ahead to him. ‘Ma always thought his birds to be particular good.’

‘Aye. I know Jim Cobb. Let’s go and see what he’s got then.’

Jim Cobb was a man with a face ridged like a ripe acorn, and it looked exactly the same to her now as it had ten years ago. And having made their way towards him, she bent down to look over his hens; picking one at random, lifting it from the basket and running her fingers over the scales on its legs and feet. Bright, beady eyes looked back at her, and satisfied that it seemed perky and a good weight, she nodded.

‘How much do he want for them?’

Above her head, she heard George make a casual enquiry, the reply to which brought his hand down to her arm to help her up and lead her away.

‘They may be good hens but not at that price. We’d best look at some others.’

They walked on to another trader – a dumpy man no taller than she was with a desiccated face and brown lips pursed about the stem of an empty pipe – but even at first glance she thought his birds inferior. ‘No,’ she whispered aside to George, ‘not them. Their legs are bright yellow, a sure sign they ain’t laying yet.
And
they all look in need of a good feed.’ Without meeting the stallholder’s eyes, they moved on to a third dealer but when George asked the price, she shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well, his price might be better but look; not all their combs are red so they ain’t all laying. ’Tis chancey.’

‘Aye, the first birds were better,’ George agreed. ‘But he’ll need to be in the mood for a keen deal. Go and fetch the baskets from Ma, then and meet me back there.’

She did as he said, the feeling of kinship once again back in her stomach. She had proved that she knew what she was about and it felt good.

When she returned with the three cumbersome baskets, George was concluding business with Jim Cobb, who, it transpired, had been anxious to get the first sale of the day under his belt.

‘Well, here’s hoping you’re not my only buyer today,’ she heard him comment as she bent down amongst the clucking and squawking to choose her dozen hens.

‘That bad, is it?’ George was asking above her head.

‘Parlous. Without a word of a lie, ’tis the hardest I’ve known it. Hens only; that’s all I rear these days. Scant call for neither ducks nor geese. See, the only folk still dining on goose are the idle ones in the big houses, and with them mostly having the pick of their own flocks, they’ve little call for the likes of me.’

‘Aye, must be hard these days,’ she heard George answer him.

‘Your young wife’s got a good eye for fowl, though,’ the dealer pronounced as payment was handed over and they shook hands.

‘Aye, seems she has,’ she was heartened to hear her husband reply.

*

A few days later, the arrival of Michaelmas signalled the time for George to take up his employment at High Beeches Place.

‘’Tis real good fortune,’ he announced, bending to lace his boots. It wasn’t the first time in the last few days that he had said as much. ‘A chance to work at the estate ain’t commonplace, especially for a family with no connection, so even though it’s only labouring, I’ll admit to being real glad of it.’

‘Shame you can’t stay on at the farm, though,’ she replied this time.

‘Aye, well, this moment’s been a fair time coming. In Grandpa’s day, Summerleas provided for everyone; no family member ever needed to look outside for work. But from the minute I was old enough to understand it, Pa made plain that there wouldn’t be a place there for neither me nor Robert and that one day, the two of us would have to make our own ways. And since things ain’t got no easier… and now that I got this rent to pay, well, I need a proper wage. In truth, I’m not greatly concerned. Work’s work wherever you do it and I fancy I won’t miss the strife down there, day-in, day-out.’

‘’Tis still a shame, though.’

‘No, Mary, the
real
shame, seein’ as you mention it, is that Tom had the good fortune to be born first, since he’s the laziest, most ungrateful slug-abed under that roof – and I include Tabitha in that – but even so, one day, without him ever having lifted even a finger by way of effort, it’ll all fall right into his lap. And oh,
how
it gives him pleasure to remind the rest of us of that fact; as though we could any of us forget it!
That
, you should know, is where the
real
shame of this lies.’

Goodness. Entirely without meaning to she seemed to have stirred a hornet’s nest. And for what: to voice a few, ill-formed thoughts? She bowed her head. She hadn’t heard such venom from him before and it was startling; frightening, even. Up until then, things between them seemed to have been settling down, too. Peering through the hair veiling her face from his view she examined his expression; his dark eyes were screwed narrow and his normally slack lips were curled into an ugly sneer.

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘No, he’ll most likely never know what it is to struggle. Still, I suppose at least now I won’t have to put up with him every day. I won’t have to watch that… that arrogant
strut
of his nor listen to the nonsense that spews his mouth.’

‘No,’ was all she dared to venture as she watched him set off up the bank to the lane, with dawn still as yet unbroken.

*

Later in the day, employed in the mindless task of sweeping the floor, Mary found herself reflecting on her first weeks as George’s wife; as a married woman. It was a peculiar feeling, still largely unreal and still deeply confusing – perhaps even more so since talking with Ellen – but in her own mind, she sensed that being married ought to be about more than simply knowing that you’d had a wedding. From what Ellen had said, she was fairly certain that she was supposed to feel different, although so far, the only difference she could identify was that she no longer knew how she was supposed to conduct herself. As far as she had been able to work out, in exchange for provision of her keep, being a wife seemed to involve two things; tending their home – with the seemingly never-ending list of things that entailed – and, well, in all frankness, being a woman for George. The first part, although back-breaking at times, was straightforward enough; the latter, still rather more of a puzzle.

She stopped sweeping and rested her weight against the broom. She still had no idea what he really expected from her in that regard nor did he seem about to enlighten her. His nightly requirement of her had already become predictable and, if she thought about it carefully, rather dull; and although he had been right when he said that it would stop hurting, it had become neither more pleasant nor more enjoyable. Perhaps she had been wrong to hope that it would and perhaps, it just needed more time –
still
– although it was becoming hard to see now, why anything was suddenly going to change.

Spotting a cobweb in the corner, she poked at it with the tip of the broom. All she knew for certain was that the more she dwelt on the matter, the harder it knotted her stomach, it becoming ever more clear to her that what she actually needed, was someone to ask about these things. Should she try Ellen again? Probably not; their situations seemed just too different. Her mother-in-law? Not the best idea either since she was George’s mother, which put her firmly at one of three corners in a tricky triangle of loyalty. So sensibly, then, she was left with only one choice – a choice that in itself wasn’t entirely without drawbacks – and that was to ask her mother.

Alone in her quandary, the rest of her first day without George seemed to stretch endlessly, until with dusk falling, she went out to round up her hens for the night. The clear sky of the day had darkened to a deep sapphire colour with the remnants of an amber sunset glowing low to the south-west and apart from the mellifluous autumn song of a robin somewhere in the apple tree, all was silent as she scooted about to usher the reluctant hens into their house. Returning indoors, she placed another log in the fire and then, hearing George’s heavy tread on the steps down the bank, she flushed, surprised by how much she was actually looking forward to seeing him. And when she pulled back the door, it was to find him leaning against the dirn, exhausted and filthy.

‘Sit down here,’ she urged as he stepped inside. Apparently too tired to object, he complied, and she tugged off his boots, soft with damp, and stood them in front of the fire where they started to steam.

‘Lord, I’m done in.’

She helped him out of his jacket, and holding it at arm’s length, shook it sharply, frowning at the cloud of pale dirt her action produced.

‘Bide there. Food, that’s what you need,’ she told him and went to ladle a helping of thick stew into a bowl. Almost before she had handed it to him, though, he started to spoon it into his mouth, wincing when it scalded his tongue. ‘What sort of work was it then?’ she asked, pulling a stool alongside him and smiling at his impatience.

‘I’ve done worse. Four of us were put to digging out the ditches along the bottom of the
lawn
, as the bailey calls it. Oh you should see it, Mary; this swathe of grass so even and so green… and none of us allowed to set foot on it. I never seen anything like it.’

‘Seems a waste.’

‘Aye, that’s the prefect word for it, although not the worst waste I seen.’

‘Oh?’

‘No,’ leaning towards her, he lowered his voice, ‘on the way back from dinner I somehow ended up on the wrong side of the yard.’ Raising the spoon to his mouth, he slurped another mouthful of stew. ‘An’ there was this long, high wall stretching ahead of me. A bit further along, I could make out a doorway, so I went on to take a look. See, I thought maybe I’d get my bearings but Lord, did I get a dressing down! Some stiff fellow wearing a starched apron shot out from nowhere and asked me what I thought I was doing round that side of the house and waved at me all a-frenzy to go back. I hadn’t the least idea who he was but by the time I got back to my work, the foreman already knew where I’d been and told me that if I wanted to last more than a single day, I shouldn’t go snooping about.’

‘But it wasn’t snooping about if you were lost.’

‘I don’t think he much cared.’

‘So who was he; the man in the apron? Someone important?’

‘Important? Him? Not a bit of it, although he most likely
thinks
he is. Someone told me he’s head gardener. By all accounts he’s not much liked and best kept away from since he’s well in with the bailey. And bailey does the hiring.’

‘Oh.’

‘Anyway, oh Mary, you should ha’ seen it.’

She frowned back at him.

‘What?’

‘Well, I count it was the kitchen garden but as big as Top Pasture, bigger even and brimming with vegetables; row upon row of them, all standing hale and hearty. And fruit, too; scores of bushes in long lines and more still, trained along the walls. And one of them glass house things. One lad told me how they grows peaches in them and some other fancy fruit called pineapples and how they cut rhubarb as tall as a man and sometimes as early as
February
.’

‘Lord. Sounds a real sight.’

‘Aye, it was a sight all right and all of it just for the squire, to boot. No chance of turmit broth for
him
. Aye, I reckon there was enough food in that one garden to feed the entire village right through this coming winter.’

‘My word.’ With the morning’s upset still fresh in her mind, she would be circumspect this time with her answers, especially since she could see that the fire was back in his eyes again.