As Meat Loves Salt (42 page)

Twisting round to speak to her, I found my face almost in her bosom. She was a full-bodied girl with rounded shoulders and arms, and the sight of her leaning over me gave me the first real pang I had felt for a woman since Caro. Confused, I stopped laughing, and

looking up saw that, although it had all passed in an instant, she had missed nothing. I glanced across at Ferris: he was staring into the fire. Becs gave my back hair a long, soft tug and went out, leaving me confounded.

Towards the end of January Ferris at last roused himself to read his letters and make a memorandum of the correspondence. To prevent as much strife as possible, he explained to me, we would both examine them equally and if I took a strong dislike to any person then he or she should not be part of our commonwealth. I was sensible of just how much he was giving way to me in this, and said so. In return, I solemnly promised not to beat anybody, howsoever provoked.

'So it's a bargain?' he asked, opening his hand.

'Done.' I spat in my palm and clapped it to his. 'Christ, Ferris! You feel like Fat Tommy. You'll never build the New Jerusalem if you don't eat more.'

'I lack appetite,' he said frowning.

'You know the proverb? One shoulder of mutton drives down another. You were fatter when you left the army.'

'You exaggerate.'

He looked about ready to snap in two, but I bridled my tongue and studied the list which he had drawn up. There was one good thing: we had more people this time and in particular, more women. The writers were altogether various, and I noted their offerings with some interest. Ferris had a good clear tradesman's hand, so that I easily made out what he had written; he stood in any case by my side, pointing out important details. I read as follows:

Jane Seabright, prophetess, given to speaking in tongues.

'No other calling?' I asked. Ferris shook his head.

Nathaniel Buckler, formerly weaver. Lost right thumb and now living with his sister's family in London. Accepts any work that offers.

Wisdom Hathersage, manservant to Mister Chiggs, some private savings; unable to meet save on the Sabbath.

Jonathan and Hepsibah Tunstall, servants, one boychild aged two. Able to tend plants and trees, and to cook.

Benjamin Botts, formerly army surgeon
(Ferris's eyes lit up as he pointed out this piece of intelligence),
now working as a toothdrawer
(my own eyes watered).

Catherine and Susannah Domremy, sisters-in-law, Mister Domremy dead of the plague. Dairymaids. Readers of pamphlets. No children.

Alice Cutts, her husband an ostler and dead at Naseby-Fight.

Antony Fleming, employed to drive coaches to Durham and back, not a smith but knowing something of the mystery
(Ferris again hopeful).

Eunice Walker, claims to have great skill in cookery and cures; sweet-smelling paper, quill very fine, sealed with a device of a thorny heart.

A thorny heart?' I asked. 'Why do you note that?'

'I fear she may be a Papist. Look here,' and he showed me the seal. It was indeed a heart, but he had mistaken the rest of the device.

"Those are arrows,' I said, sniffing the paper, which breathed roses over the names of the other colonists. 'Your Mistress Walker is a votary of Cupid, not the Pope.'

'Well.’ He pursed his lips.

Jack and Dorothy Wilkinson, just married, the man lately come from the war and the wife with child. Weaver. The letter written by the wife.

Christian Keats, tailor. Able to bring stuffs. Lately widowed, three children, now with his sister-in-law.

Ferris laid the letters one on top of the other, and then side by side. 'Some of these will come out bad,' he said thoughtfully.

'Jane Seabright?' I had taken against the 'Prophetess' at once.

'Aye. And I fear Eunice Walker.' He held up the letter and wafted it towards me so I again caught the scent of rose otto. 'Does
that
bespeak a hardy, God-fearing woman who'll work the fields with us?'

I said there was cause to doubt it. 'But we're losing the women already. At least let us see them.'

'The only way is to bring them all here together. If we are to work and live as a community, each of them must have the chance to meet all his fellows, not ourselves alone.'

I hoped Wisdom Hathersage would be able to come, for I had taken a childish liking to his name, and he was the only one to mention openly that he had means. I pointed this out to Ferris.

'We'll get mostly folk with very little,' he replied. 'If a man is doing well, and content, why should he change? Our commonwealth will be but a common poverty to start with, all our riches still to strive for.'

'Ought we to ask Hathersage to put in money, though others put in none?' I asked.

Ferris grinned. 'Perhaps he too has none. Best ask a small sum of each, what think you? But this should be agreed by all of us.'

He was happier than I had seen him since I attacked Rowly, and I prayed that this new company might prove more congenial to me than the old. Ferris and I were still not right with one another. I perceived that he was nursing some hurt, but could never get him to speak of it, and once, upon my pressing him, he had shouted, 'Did I not swear, never to enter upon this subject again?' as if referring to some vow. I could remember no such occasion, and thought one or the other of us must be subject to bouts of lunacy.

I helped him draft and copy letters to all of these persons requesting them to present themselves the second Sunday in February (this was done for Hathersage) at the house in Cheapside at noon, there to meet their fellow projectors. A boy from next door was hired as messenger, and Aunt was informed that the house would be invaded by strangers.

'Of what quality are they?' she enquired, already fretting over what hospitality to offer.

'Working people and masterless men,' said Ferris. 'Here.' He passed her the letters. 'Meat pasties and cabbage will do very well, and were they kings I see no reason to offer them more.'

She took this meekly, pleased to see him more active and cheerful even if it meant the resurrection of the hated community.

And canary,' said Ferris.

'No,'
said I. 'We don't yet know how these people conduct themselves when they drink.'

'Do you mean they'll bang each other's heads on the table?'

That silenced me.

'He's in the right, Christopher. They can have beer, and all manner of cordials,’ said his aunt.

'Very well. We'll have the bookcase door repaired in case any of them are light-fingered.'

I thought that was meant for me too, and resolved to shame him. The next day, having enquired of Aunt as to what tools there were in the house, I myself repaired the bookcase, something Ferris had not known me able to do. He watched me pick out the broken glass and fit the new pane, adjusting it with care.

'A neat job,' he admitted grudgingly.

Resentment suddenly flared in me. 'When you found me on the road that day,' I snapped, 'did you think me fallen from the sky? Since then I remain under your tutelage, but let me tell you there wasn't a job — not one! — in my former life that I couldn't complete to perfection.'

'Perfection?'

'Perfection! I was like to be steward when the old one died.'

Ferris raised his eyebrows as if to say,
Well! You never told me this
before.

And had the fairest woman to my wife. There, an end to my bragging,’ for I was beginning to sound, even to myself, like Roger Rowly. I wiped my hands and began packing away the tools.

'You're proud as Lucifer,' he said wonderingly.

'Bad Angel,' I shot back. Then I put away the tool-box and after went straight up to my room.

Perhaps I should leave him. Our amity was grown so twisted and soured by errors and mistakings that I was hard put to see how it might ever come clear again. I wished I could start over from that first day, when I opened my dazzled eyes and found him giving me water. Then I fled to him from the prentices and he took me up again, and charmed me by sheer goodness: that was the time to go back to, and live in. Or perhaps even before that, sitting with Caro in the maze, no blood on my hands, no man's kiss in my mouth. But there would still be Walshe, and the pamphlets. It was all preordained, there had never been a place where I could have leapt free of the net.

I came to myself with a sense of hopelessness and found I was looking out on the courtyard without seeing it. In place of my vision

there stretched before me a blue-grey life of city winter and darkened rooms.

Someone was shouting below. I stepped softly onto the stairs, and by straining could pick out Ferris crying imperiously, 'Do it yourself! I don't—' (here I lost some words)'—but may I rot in Hell if ever I do it for you!'

Aunt's voice next, faint and querulous: she seemed to be pleading with him. My friend grumbled something which I could not catch, and then, venomously, 'I know what this is for!' along with further angry speech which was lost to me. I had never heard them talk so to one another. I went back inside the room, sat down on the bed and covered my ears, miserably certain that my sin of wrath had infected the whole house.

In the end Aunt called me and I had to go down. The supper was on the table; I descended and found Ferris deathly white and Aunt very red, but full of praise for my work on the bookcase door. Her nephew listened in a sulk until she asked him, 'Is it not beautiful, Christopher?'

'Perfection,' he replied bitterly.

She gave up and we sank into silence. The meat was stringy, and I chewed on the ox-tail as the wretched animal must once have chewed on the cud. Becs had never again subjected me to the eels, but I felt she had not forgotten. Now, picking gristle out of the hole in my jaw, I almost wished Eel Day were come.

'Jacob, Christopher has something to discuss with you after supper,’ Aunt said into the tense air. I looked up in terror: surely this was the end, and he was telling me to leave.

'Let me hear it now,' I begged, as if the message would be less cruel with Aunt there, or as if he would not dare deliver it. Striving for calm, I heard my voice squeak like a lad's. Ferris shook his head, as if warning me. He looked as afraid as I felt, which was some encouragement: perhaps, after all, he would not put me out — perhaps he had changed his ideas on the colony. That did not matter. Whatever he wanted, so long as I was there to share it.

Aunt rose to clear the table.

'Where's Becs?' I had not missed the girl until that moment.

'With her family. I've given her a half-day. Open the door for me, Christopher.’ Aunt disappeared down the stairwell. Halfway down she called out, "There's a spiced tart,' her voice floating up eerily to the upper room.

'Now,' I said, turning to face him.

'I can't.'

Those were the only words we spoke. Aunt reappeared bearing the tart, and with it mulled wine, full of cinnamon, which I drank deep for comfort, picturing it lapping round my heart. Ferris ended by eating three portions of the sweet pastry, which I was persuaded he did not want. His aunt served them up to him with the calm of the nurse who sees the child will soon tire and will end by doing what she wishes. He was unable to eat the crust of the last piece, and sat head down staring at it.

'I'll just take these to the scullery and then I'm straight up to my bed,' said Aunt. 'Goodnight to you both.'

'Goodnight,’ we chorused. She gathered up all the dirty crocks and I thought how even women, those soft creatures, can be masterful at times; it is just as well God made them weak in body. I trembled as the door closed after her.

We sat each staring jealously at the other. My face felt hot, my hands cold. Ferris got up and I rose also, thinking to move to the chairs by the fire, but he bade me stay where I was. Taking more candles, he lit them and lined them up, two near his left hand and two near his right, then seated himself directly opposite me.

Are we going to read?' I asked.

'No.'

'Then why the lights?'

He said nothing and I realised it was my face he wanted to illumine. After glancing at the table two or three times, and much opening and closing of his lips, he began. 'I am to make you an offer. You know what it is.'

Aunt wants me to go?'

He shook his head impatiently.

I tried again.
'You
want—?'

His eyes narrowed. 'So I'm not to be spared anything, not even saying it.'

'You'll have to, for me,' I said. 'I don't know what your offer is.' If it was not an order to leave, I was baffled, and his face, full of a hurt I could not interpret, gave me no help.

'Right,' he said. 'Since you will have us play the game, Aunt wants me to broker a marriage.'

'A
marriage!’
I gave a gasping laugh. 'I've neither house nor money, what makes her think I'd wive?'

'She has ways round that.'

'I can't marry your aunt!'

'Come, come, Jacob! You know she's not the woman.'