A Mother's Sacrifice (2 page)

‘You want us out.’ It was a statement rather than a question from Laura.

‘That’s about it, madam.’

‘But where would we go?’ Quinta exclaimed.

Farmer Bilton looked sideways at her and, although he did not smile, she thought his features softened a little. He said, ‘I’m not a harsh landlord. I’ve let you stay for two years, watching you struggle.’ He shook his head and pursed his lips. ‘No man to mow and turn grass for hay, or clear the stream. It goes to rack and ruin, you see.’

‘We have done our best,’ Laura explained. ‘We till a large garden and sell eggs and - and make cheese, too, when we can get the milk.’

‘But only one donkey on all that pasture. And now he’s gone, you think only of a goat—’

‘Or two,’ Quinta interrupted.

‘Be quiet, dear. It is all we can manage, sir.’

‘Aye.’

He resumed his eating and appeared to be enjoying his dinner. After another gulp of ale he asked, ‘Will you have my rent at Midsummer?’

‘I shall have half of it, sir.’

‘But will you get the rest?’

Without a donkey to take their produce to market Quinta knew it would be difficult. She heeded her mother’s wishes and stayed silent.

Laura had hardly touched her stewed fowl but she remained composed and replied, ‘I can work for you, sir, to make up the difference. I am clean and frugal in my ways. Look around you, sir. You can see that I am a good housekeeper.’ She hesitated, took a deep breath and continued: ‘You have good standing as a farmer in the Riding, if I may say so, sir. I wonder, does the vicar ever pay you the compliment of calling on you, with his sister?’

Quinta saw Farmer Bilton frown and begin to look uncomfortable and she knew they did not. He was a bachelor and his farmhouse was ill furnished and unkempt. The vicar’s sister had caused a stir in the village when she had come to live there, for although she was a spinster lady of maturing years, she trimmed her bonnets lavishly and it was said she was seeking a husband.

Laura went on, ‘How welcome they would feel if you had a parlour maid to offer them a glass of sherry wine in your drawing room. I was a servant at the Hall before I wed, sir. I know how to do things properly for you.’

Quinta looked closely at him as his face set in a grimace. He was about the same age as her father had been when he died two years ago. His face was weather-beaten and lined, to be sure, but his wrists looked sinewy and strong and his hands were straight. Not like the knobbly, gnarled fingers of his bent old farmhand.

‘And would you leave here?’ he asked.

‘I should not wish to unless my daughter comes with me. I have taught her all I learned from my time at the Hall. She would not be a burden.’

Quinta watched his face as he considered Mother’s offer. He pulled his mouth to one side and nodded slightly.Then he said, ‘Can she graft?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Quinta answered swiftly. ‘I can till a garden, milk a cow, churn butter and make cheese.’

He glanced at her. ‘Aye. I believe you.’

‘However, I should like to stay in my home, sir. The old Squire promised my husband—’

‘He made promises to me, too. Nigh on sixteen year ago, when I first came here. Did your husband tell you that?’

Mother did not talk of the past much and the old Squire was dead and gone, but Quinta knew her father had done him a great service and in return he had persuaded young Farmer Bilton to grant him a tenancy for Top Field. Bilton Farm had been neglected before its new owner arrived and three years advanced rent from the old Squire was a welcome sum to get the farm going again.

Her mother became flustered. ‘You were glad of the Squire’s help at the time. As indeed were we. Quinta, would you pour me a little ale, dear?’ When she had taken a drink, she added, ‘I am a respectable widow, sir, and I should serve you well as housekeeper.’

Farmer Bilton seemed to recover from his former uneasiness and looked from mother to daughter and back to her mother. ‘Aye, you might at that.’

‘You - you will consider me, sir?’

Quinta gave him more ale. He drank again and leaned forward. ‘Do you know how old I am, Mrs Haig?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Past five and forty, madam. The years have run away from me. Now I am reaping the fruits of my labour. I visit my neighbours and the shopkeepers in the town, and I see how they all have ladies wearing pretty bonnets to walk out with them.’

‘As I say, sir, I can keep as good a house as any from round here.’

‘I want more than a housekeeper, Mrs Haig.’

‘My daughter and I can tend your garden and orchard, as well as your dairy, sir,’ she added.

‘I am looking for more than a servant.’

Quinta stopped eating her dinner, a forkful of fowl halfway to her mouth. What more did he want? Surely - surely he could not mean a - a wife? This was not what Mother had expected at all and her normally serene features had frozen into a surprised query. ‘Please speak plainly, sir.’

‘Come now, Mrs Haig.You womenfolk know of these things before we menfolk have even thought of them. I am looking for a wife, madam. A wife.’

‘And you have come to me?’

‘I have.’

Quinta watched the look of disbelief on her mother’s face, closely followed by a nervous smile. Neither she nor her mother had expected this and wariness came into her mother’s eyes, but she remained calm. ‘You honour and flatter me, sir. But I had not thought of you in such terms. If you will allow me time to consider—’

‘Time? Forgive me, madam. That is something I have little of. I have learned that ladies do not discuss their ages. But I must. You are, I fear, older in years than I?’

Her mother’s face stilled. ‘I have a grown daughter, sir, a gift from God, born in my later years.’

‘But can you bear more children?’

Quinta was astounded by his forwardness and watched an angry flush creep up her mother’s neck, around her chin and over her face, making it blotchy and unattractive.

‘Please do not speak so when my daughter is present,’ Laura said tightly. She looked away and then down at her hands. Finally, she returned her attention to him as he calmly soaked up the last of his gravy with an oat biscuit and said quietly, ‘You are disrespectful, sir. Quinta, would you fetch me some water from the barrel?’

Quinta rose to her feet.

‘Sit down, Miss Quinta. This concerns you as well as your mother.’

Laura Haig turned her serious face towards their visitor. ‘I do not deny my age. I am sure I would suit you well as a housekeeper. But that is all.’

‘You mistake my meaning, madam. Yes, I shall take you as my housekeeper and be pleased to do so. But my greater need is for a wife.

Quinta noticed that her mother seemed to relax at this remark. She did too. He must be thinking of marrying into gentry and his lady wife would expect a woman to run the household for her.They had both misunderstood his needs and mother rallied in her response. ‘I shall of course be happy to housekeep for whomsoever you choose for your wife, sir.’

Quinta watched him nod his head slowly. ‘Do you think I have the makings of a good husband, Mrs Haig?’

‘I do not know, sir,’ her mother replied shortly.

‘I am accumulating wealth and I have no kin to benefit from my fortune. Toiling in my fields has given me little time for courting and my years seem to advance more quickly nowadays.’

‘Please do not prolong this interview, sir. Either you wish me to work for you or you do not. If you have finished your dinner, I believe our business is at an end.’

He ignored her plea, apparently intent on finishing his speech. ‘I need more than a wife. I must have offspring, madam. Fruit of my own loins.’

‘Sir!’ Laura Haig was affronted by this airing of his thoughts. ‘Do not continue this conversation when my child is present.’

‘Child? She is no child. She is rising sixteen, is she not?’

‘You will be kind enough to guard your tongue. She is a maid, sir.’ Quinta recognised a firmness in her mother’s tone that told her she was angry.

‘Quite so.Your daughter will suit me as a wife down to the ground.’ He turned to Quinta and raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you say, Miss Quinta?’

Chapter 2

He expected Quinta to respond. But how? She glanced across at her mother for help and caught the look of sheer horror spread across her features. ‘I - I - Mother?’ What should she say? What could she say? The silent rage that lingered in her mother’s eyes alarmed her even further. Her breathing was laboured and she began to cough.

Quinta answered hastily, ‘I do not understand what you want of me, sir.’ She rose to fetch her mother’s cough mixture from the dresser, spooning it directly into her mouth. Her wheezing subsided and an awkward silence settled around the table.

Farmer Bilton turned his conversation towards Quinta and explained as though he needed her to be clear: ‘Your mother can’t give me children, lass. You can.’

Embarrassed, Quinta looked down at her plate and the silence stretched between the three of them.When she raised her eyes, she was shocked by her mother’s expression of revulsion.

‘Mother?’

But Laura Haig was frozen to her chair with distaste etched into her normally serene face. Her voice came out hoarse and barely audible. ‘You wish for my Quinta to be your wife.’

‘Aye. That’s about the size of it. But I’ll not leave you here on your own, Mrs Haig. I’ll take you on as housekeeper as you wish. With this cottage empty, I can have the masons in by Midsummer and a new tenant before Michaelmas. It is an arrangement that suits us all, is it not?’

Quinta could hardly believe her ears. He wanted them both to leave the only home she had ever known, and - she swallowed - for her to marry him. He had just told them he was thirty years her senior. He was an old man! Surely her mother was a much better choice as a wife for him?

‘You are too hasty, sir,’ Laura whispered.

‘I have no more years to waste if I am to have children before my half-century. I must have a bride soon, so you will give me your answer within the week.’

‘I can give you my answer now, sir.’

‘And your face tells me what that will be. Do not say no to me, madam.You will not be able to pay your rent at Midsummer. You’ll be homeless. I can keep the pair of you out of the workhouse, so think on my offer carefully.’ He stood up to leave. ‘I’ll send Seth to collect your donkey for the dogs as I promised. While you make up your mind, you can have all the skim to make cheese that your lass can carry.’

‘My mind is already set, sir. Quinta will not marry you.’

‘Of course she will! The old Squire said as much when the tenancy was drawn up. He said she would do for me when she was grown.’

‘What!’ Quinta had never seen her mother so angry. ‘He had no right!’

‘He was your late husband’s patron, was he not?’

‘My Joseph did not agree to that, I am sure.’

‘He signed for the tenancy and that was good enough for me. I had done the old Squire a service by leasing Top Field as he asked, and he owed me.’

‘You got your rent money in advance, didn’t you?’

Quinta knew very little about the old Squire’s patronage that had set her father up as a small farmer. It had all happened years ago. She listened intently.

‘She was just a babe in arms at the time,’ Laura added.

‘Aye. That’s why what he said then never crossed my mind again until just lately. She’s a fine-looking lass, though. She’ll do for me, all right.’

‘She will not!’

His face darkened at her mother’s firm rejection of his offer and he clambered to his feet. ‘She will, madam, and I shall have my property by Midsummer. Or all my rent, of course,’ he added cruelly. ‘It’s for you to choose.’

‘You know that is not a choice, sir,’ her mother said quietly.

‘I should talk it over with your daughter first. She seems a sensible lass to me. Knows which side her bread’s buttered.Who will sympathise with you when you are homeless if they know I offered marriage?’

Laura stared at him stonily and Quinta returned her eyes to her plate. She could not get used to the idea that this red-faced old man really wanted her to wed him. She had seen older gentlemen celebrate marriage in the village church, but they generally married widows, perhaps not as old as they were but certainly not as young as she. She looked up as Farmer Bilton spoke again.

‘Thank you kindly for my dinner, Mrs Haig. When you have calmed yourself you will see the sense of my offer and I should welcome you in my house. Good day to you both.’ He drained his mug of ale and stood up to leave, casting a large shadow over their table.

Her mother did not move. She seemed unable to stir from her chair. Quinta jumped to her feet to hold open the door for him. He was a thick-set burly man and he stood too close to her, towering over her on their threshold. ‘Fine-looking lass,’ he murmured half to himself with a twisted expression on his face. Then he bent down and spoke quietly by her ear. ‘You’d like to wear a pretty bonnet for church, wouldn’t you? And go to town to shop in the market instead of to sell?’

His nearness made her nervous and she nodded wordlessly. It seemed best to agree with him as he was their landlord. She curtseyed falteringly. He gave her a sort of smile, like the one the vicar used after her father’s burial in the churchyard, and walked out to mount his fine horse. He may not be proper gentry, she thought, but he was a well-off farmer now, with increasing influence in the Riding. He could make life very difficult for her and her mother.

‘Did Father really promise me to Farmer Bilton?’ Quinta asked as soon as he had left.

‘He did not
promise
you to anyone,’ her mother protested angrily. ‘It was the old Squire’s suggestion and he could be a meddling old tyrant when it suited him. He thought he could rule the whole valley as his father had done before him. But things were different after the war with France. Just because he made his son wed the girl he’d picked for him—’