A Mother's Sacrifice (40 page)

Amos went on, ‘You have a wedding ring and a child. If I say you are my wife, folk will believe me. The babe will take my name and none will know he is a bastard.’

‘Don’t call him that.’

‘That is what he is; conceived of a mother and father who were not wed.’

‘We were as good as!’

‘So you say. But the child’s father deserted you—’

‘He was taken from me!’

‘Aye. And you deceived another to give the lad a name.’

‘Do you blame me? It was Noah Bilton who lied and sent little Patrick’s father to gaol!’

‘So you thought you’d make old Noah pay by wedding him instead, eh? Perhaps you are a harlot after all?’

Stung to the core, she retaliated hotly, ‘Then why do you want me?

‘I have need of a wife and you have need of a father for your bastard child. The child will have my name if I have you in my bed.’ He handed little Patrick back to her and added, ‘We’d best get moving.’

Would everyone think of her child in this way? Was he destined to suffer the same degradation as his father? She had loved - continued to love - his father and believed their union had been right. But, for the first time, a tiny glimmer of regret flared. She had been the one to warn of the consequences of a Lammas agreement, although she had never imagined that she and Patrick would be forcibly separated as they were. She did not doubt their love, only their indulgence in expressing that love to each other so soon.

 

The moorland softened and the slopes were greener as they descended towards the South Riding valleys. Quinta recalled her journey the other way with Noah and gazed at the haze in the distance. Tomorrow she would see smoking chimneys, rows of workers’ terraces and a glint of the navigation as it wound its way between town and country and town again.

Amos found an old cottage for the night, a broken-down timber-and-daub hovel with hardly any roof. But the sun had kept it dry and he built a fire to prepare hot food and drink. He offered her rum which she refused.

‘Where will the barge take us?’ she asked.

‘Doncaster.’

‘Oh.’ Quinta was relieved they were going beyond the town where she might be known. ‘Why Doncaster?’

‘I’m told that a drover’s trail from the Dales ends there. I can get work as a drover’s assistant until I have my own licence.’

‘You want to be a drover?’

‘There is good money to be made bringing the sheep down from the Dales.’

‘You will not need the encumbrance of a wife and child on a drover’s trail?’ she suggested hopefully.

‘I cannot get my licence until I am a householder with a wife. I have my wife and I shall find you lodgings until I have made enough to take a house. By then I shall have my master’s recommendation and I may apply for my own licence.’

So that was why he was set on having a wife. He wanted her only to get his drover’s licence. And then what would happen to her? Would he cast her aside as Noah had? Might he sell her at the hiring fair? She was tempted to challenge him with this possibility but thought better of it and only commented, ‘Licensed drovers are rich men.’

‘Aye, they are. Our children will go to school, have clothes on their backs and boots on their feet.’

‘Our children?’

‘It is why a man takes a wife, is it not?’

It was why Noah had married her, she reflected. And she knew, as her mother had known, that it was not reason enough for happiness. ‘Then he surely must take a wife that he loves?’

‘Aye.’

‘She must love him in return, Amos. I do not love you.’

‘You will. When you have weaned that infant who is taking all you have to give.’

‘A wife’s love is different.’

He became angry. ‘Do you think I do not know that? Do you think I do not want that love to seal our bargain? I despised the whorehouse in Crosswell as a place where men indulge their sinful appetites. But if men have wives like you then I know why it thrives.You will make a sinner of me yet! A man has only so much patience and he cannot wait for ever to take his woman as his wife. When is it to be, Quinta? Must I take you by force, because, by the Lord, if you do not come to me willingly, I shall!’

She believed he would. He believed she was his wife and as her husband it was his right. If she did not go to his bed, even mild-mannered Amos would be driven to anger. If she resisted him, would he beat her until she submitted? She thought not. He had the advantage of size and strength and could easily overcome her if he chose. She knew of no worse hurt for a woman than to be forced into the act of union.

But what was this if not force? If she gave her body passively, her flesh would not be bruised and torn but her heart would be violated, for her heart belonged to another, and it would always yearn for him. When she closed her eyes she could see Patrick’s face and remember his passion. She could not willingly contemplate lying with another man.

She gazed wistfully at her sleeping infant, whose survival and safety were more important to her than her own life. With her as Amos’s wife, her child’s life would be secure and comfortable. She had married Noah for precisely that, and knew very well how wrong she had been. But perhaps she owed this sacrifice to her child? More than anything she wanted her son to have a name and respectability. She did not want him to suffer the contempt and deprivation his father had known. As the son of a drover, perhaps becoming one himself when he was grown, he would be protected from such misery. What did her feelings count for when her son’s future was at stake?

She inhaled deeply and said, ‘I will come to your bed as your wife. I ask only that you do not force yourself on me. I will give you my body, but that is all, Amos. I can never give you my heart. I am sorry.’

‘You will never love me?’

‘I love another. Please try and understand.’

‘So you will behave no better than a harlot? You will do as I ask even though you do not wish it?’

‘You are leaving me with little choice. What more do you want of me?’

‘I want a little of the love you give that child! Is that too much to ask of you?’

Quinta stayed silent. She could not love to order. Did he wish her to pretend?

‘Is this why Noah sold you? Was it because you would not be a proper loving wife to him in the bedchamber?’

‘I deceived him,’ she admitted. ‘You are a good man, Amos, and I am being honest with you.’

‘You talk like a whore!’

‘Amos!’

‘You offer me your body like a common street woman! I do not want a whore for wife!’

‘And I do not want to be your wife!’ she retaliated angrily.

He got up and crashed out of their shelter into the black night. Jess, who had been sleeping by the fire, woke up and followed him.

Quinta was shocked by Amos’s words. If only she had a few coins of her own, she would not be so dependent on him, or indeed anybody. She could not storm off into the night like that. She had a child to care for. The men may have the money, she reflected silently, but it is the women who pay the price.

Chapter 26

It was the waterway that released her. Amos had not seen this scale of trade and activity in Crosswell.The Tinsley wharf shipped in coal, iron and supplies for the nearby thriving town of Sheffield. Payloads out, bound for the east coast, consisted of fine-edge tools made from even finer steel. The finest in the world, it was said. He had been quiet since their quarrel and, as they sat on a low wall watching the barges, Quinta noticed him looking at the other ladies that frequented the wharf.

These were not street women. They kept to the taverns. These were the wives and daughters of bargemen, tradesmen and even wealthy merchants, in their silken gowns and elaborate bonnets. She wondered if he might leave her here to fend for herself. Little Patrick, alert as ever, seemed to be enjoying watching the activities, and cooed happily in her ear.

Amos had been to the canal company office and he returned with pies and apples from a street-seller.‘I’ve purchased a passage eastbound to Doncaster, and one for you as far as Forge Island. The barge will stop there to load fire grates and it is near to the town that you know.’

‘You are letting me go?’ She was cheered by this knowledge.

‘You are not what I want.’

That sentiment was mutual, but her elation was short-lived.

‘I have no money, Amos.’

‘There’s plenty of work in service, I’m told, in lodging houses and such. If not, they have a workhouse so you and the babe won’t starve. Ask the bargeman’s wife.’

She was a rough and ready woman with a liking for strong drink, but she allowed Quinta and little Patrick to sit in the owner’s cabin at the rear while Amos lowered himself into a tiny space up front for the journey. Her knowledge was useful and Quinta felt confident she would find a lodging and the means to pay for it.

Amos placed her box by her feet on the bank opposite Forge Island. She was so relieved to be free that she felt kindly towards him. She bent to fondle Jess’s ears and when she straightened he gave her a few coins.

‘I’ll pay you back. Somehow.’

‘It’s not much.’

‘I - I mean the five guineas that you paid for me.’

‘Where will you get that?’

She didn’t know, but to her way of thinking it was Noah who should pay it. She wasn’t that far away from him now and she was still his wife whether he liked it or not. Following the bargeman’s wife’s directions she found a lodging house near to the canal where the ironworks’ furnaces and forges were situated. It was dirty and crowded and the landlady wanted a scullery maid for the rough work. She had no spare room, not even in the kitchen or attic, for her and little Patrick to sleep in but gave her the address of a woman who would take her in with a babe and care for him while she worked.

Quinta wasn’t happy about this arrangement but she had no choice and struggled further with her box and her baby to a muddy yard surrounding a water pump.Terraced cottages formed three sides of a square around this yard and she knocked on the door she believed to be number seven. The woman who answered was none too clean and she took all Quinta’s coins before she let her over the threshold.

She slept in a narrow hard bed in the kitchen as there was only one upstairs chamber and it was the biggest wrench of her life leaving little Patrick before six o’clock the following morning. She had had to wake him early to feed him and leave some of her milk for the woman, Mrs Farrow, to give him during the day. Mrs Farrow seemed used to this; she had taken in destitute women and their infants before.

Quinta spent all day washing pots, scrubbing tables and floors and pounding at dirty linen in a tub.The lodgers were working men: colliers, ironworkers and labourers who loaded and unloaded barges at the wharf. She did, however, eat a good dinner of meat pudding and rhubarb pie and was allowed plenty of ale to drink. But by afternoon she was wilting in the heat. She had not worked so hard since before little Patrick was born and had, somehow, lost the stamina she’d had at Top Field. She thought about her child constantly and could not wait to get back to him, not least because her breasts were leaking.

She returned to Mrs Farrow shortly after six in the evening, weakened and exhausted. How was she to survive this every day? Her heart sank further as she approached the yard with its farmyard stench and dirty children squabbling by the pump. Why were they not indoors at this hour? There was a screeching coming from the open door across the yard. But this was not the wailing of a child. It was the weeping of a woman, two women, sobbing their hearts out.This was no husband and wife argument and she walked over to enquire, keeping a few steps away from the door.

‘What’s wrong? Can I do anything to help?’

The younger woman looked up for a second and shook her head. It looked as if her mother was with her and Quinta felt a pang of loss for her own. No matter how difficult life had been when she was alive, it had been easier to face when they were together.

‘Babby’s gone,’ the older woman said. ‘The toddlers are sick wi’ the fever an’ all.’

Quinta surveyed the scene from the doorstep.They had obviously done their best to keep their kitchen clean but with so many people in such a small space it must be difficult. ‘I’m very sorry,’ she said. ‘Can you not take them up to the Dispensary?’

‘They’ll tek ’em from ’er and put ’em in that workhouse place. Full o’ disease, that is. I’ll not ’ave ’em go up there.’

Quinta couldn’t think of anything else to say and was concerned about her own son now. She hurried home, praying that Patrick was safe.

In contrast her new home was relatively quiet and there was a warming aroma of stew in the kitchen. ‘How is he?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Quiet as a mouse all day.’

‘Really? That doesn’t sound like my baby!’

‘Aye well, ’e’s more settled ’ere, isn’t ’e?’

‘I suppose so,’ she agreed. But Quinta thought Patrick was becoming more of a handful to keep quietly occupied as he grew.

‘Yer need a po’ fer ’im when yer get yer wages. I ’eld ’im outta the door a couple o’ times. It saves on the washing.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’ She walked over to her sleeping son. He was normally awake at this time and Quinta kept him awake if she could so that he would sleep longer through the night. He looked so peaceful she decided not to rouse him in spite of her strong desire to pick him up and hold him. But she could smell his wet linen as she bent to stroke his cheek. ‘He needs changing. How long has he been asleep?’

‘Don’t rightly know. I put ’im down ter get on with the tea.’

A shaky nervousness began to overtake her. He didn’t normally sleep so soundly at this time of day. He was a lively child and interested in all around him. Was he ill? Had he caught the fever? Oh Lord, please do not be so cruel! She put the back of her hand on his brow. He did not feel hot and she pulled herself together. ‘There’s fever in the yard,’ she said.