As Meat Loves Salt (43 page)

It came to me at once. 'Becs.'

'My aunt sent her out purposely.' He spoke in a cool, determined voice and sat back in the chair to observe my stupefied expression.

'But she has no money, either,' I stammered.

And that's your objection?' asked Ferris, stern as the Recording Angel.

'I wasn't thinking of myself.’ Though a lame answer, it was a truthful one: not avarice, but simple astonishment had spoken in me. 'What I would say is, why will Aunt have me marry her when we have nothing to marry on? Where's the, the—'

'Profit?'

Aye! If you remember it was
your
word. Where's the profit?'

'Well, I can see where Becs's profit lies,' he mocked. 'How often have we joked about it?'

Again I felt her fingers tangled in my hair, pulling my head back, and heard her low laugh.

'She thinks now is the time — she has talked with your aunt,' I mused.

And why might that be?' demanded Ferris.

'Eh?'

'Have you given her cause to hope?' He leant forward as if to snatch at my answer.

'Not I. But I've seen her more — forward — of late. Yes indeed.'

We were silent a moment. I both saw and heard him take a breath before he went on flatly, as if reciting a hated lesson, 'She is to have a dowry of twenty pounds, and you can live in with her as servant here.'

I sighed, for it was a fair prospect to a masterless man already disenchanted with the colony. No more living on Ferris's bounty. A good, kind mistress to work for; a pretty young wife, clever at what she did, who felt for me all that a woman may feel for a man. I would become a citizen of London and not lie in turf huts nor dig drains. But Ferris being gone, I was not sure what it would all taste of.

'My aunt and I have fallen out over my telling you this,' Ferris said. 'She
would
have it come from me, as being more persuasive. I refused at first.'

'But then yielded to her? Why was that?'

'Something she said cut the ground from under me.' He looked at me almost with hatred.

I lowered my eyes and studied a mark on the table. 'Yes? Something she said?'

'She said it was no matter my refusing, if you didn't. She as good as dared me to put the question.'

'She is sure of my acceptance, then.'

'You haven't refused,' he pointed out. I thought I heard scorn in his voice and looked up to tell him that poverty opens as many temptations to a man as do riches, but seeing his compressed lips, was ashamed to offer such an excuse. Instead I said, 'Is your aunt doing this just to help Becs to a husband?'

'She says she gains a man in the house, and that's good against thieves if her nephew goes.'

'If? You are already set on going.'

'So I am; but Aunt imagines
your
staying would hold me here, too. That's the root of the matter, though she never says it.'

I remembered her eager quizzing of me from her sickbed, and especially the hint that Ferris and I were bound together, which had made my face so fire up.

'But she is wrong?' I asked. 'You would go without me?'

He nodded.

I went on, 'So I'd never see you again.'

'Not never; I would come to see Aunt,' he replied. 'But I would meet you as her servant.'

I pictured myself waiting at table, silent while others were privileged to sit and talk with him. I would brush his coats and lay out his shirts: that image so pained me that all I could do was repeat, 'But you would leave.'

'You'd
have made
your
choice!' he flared. 'What would satisfy you — that I should give up the colony to secure you twenty pounds?'

I hesitated, shamefaced, for had there been no woman in the bargain, it was exactly what I did want: money, and the two of us in London.

He went on, 'And that I should drink to you at your wedding?'

I pictured Becs and myself together, squabbling, but always over little things, while I rotted away at the core from love of Ferris.

It was hopeless.

'Here.' I laid my hands on the table, palms up, and jerked my head at them, 'put yours on top.'

Ferris did not move.

'Please,’ I said.

He laid his cold hands on mine and I curled my fingers, folding his within them.

'Now,' I said, 'I've neither accepted nor refused. Speak it out plainly, tell me and I'll do it.'

He cried, 'Don't put it onto me! Choose for yourself

"This
is
choosing. Tell Aunt I will do whatever you'll have me do, and that's my answer.’ I kept hold of his fingers. We stayed there silent and motionless for some time, while the candles burnt down.

At last he said quietly, 'It is a lot to give up.'

'Well. My history is bad enough without bigamy,' I replied, at which he smiled but made no reply. The candles were half burnt. I took one and rose.

'Goodnight, Ferris.'

'Goodnight, Jacob.'

As I climbed the stairs I could hear him behind me blowing out the rest.

The Devil had again struck at me, not through the flesh this time, but through that love of money which is the root of all evil, and for once I had bested him. I would be neither bigamist, nor husband to a girl I did not love; instead, I would master my laziness and love of ease and I would help build the colony. I had vowed it before, but vows are but a paper study for a monument in stone, to be carved out with much sweat, perhaps not without injury, before the thing stands to be admired. To the colony I should go, and give of my best for it, and live kindly with my companions so that Ferris should see my worth.

On entering my chamber I put down the candle and fetched the map from the shelf, being now of a mind to do anything, provided I did not like it, in order to lay up riches in Heaven. Though the printing was too fine to search by candlelight, I was ready to blind myself to find Abbot's Gardens and so redeem my meanness concerning Samuels and his potatoes. As I unscrolled it, something dropped out, bounced off my shoe and skittered along the floorboards. There was a paper, too, rolled up in the map. I pulled it out, and pressed it against the wall behind the candle flame, to read the following:

You avert your eyes from me. What should I think? For some time I believed I had understood you, and even now am not sure, but begin to fear I am fallen into a horrible error, and blush to think of that whore's trick of leaving the door unlatched. What is become of me? Do not believe I forget my spouse, neither. My nights are cruel: I lie unfitted to sleep. Now I find myself solicited to plead the cause of a rival, and to help put her into your bed. Have you the heart to stand by and see it done?

Or will you come to me?

Were this to be printed, I could not keep back those words. I swear this is the last time I shall ever break the business with you. I cannot talk of it face to face; try as I will, I find each time that my tongue is nailed down. What is wrapped in this paper, let it plead

for me, as once it pleaded for you, saying, Deal with me kindly. I have had no rest since a certain dream that you know of. Waking, I thought (pardon me the resemblance!) that the scales dropped from my eyes: had I died then, I had died happy. Speak to me, Jacob, do not play the tyrant. Speak to me.

The air was become as water. A sea pressed me down, my ears roaring, lungs choking on salt heaviness. I stood motionless, only my eyes going over and over the message like those of an unlettered man who feigns to read. He had struggled long in these same waters, until his strength had given out. My breathing was hoarse against the silence.
Wrapped in this paper.
Taking the candle, I knelt on the floor and found what I had known would be there, the sharp-edged glass diamond marked
Loyaute.
It needled the palm of my hand.

His letter was dated some fortnight earlier, about the time he was become so insistent that I look in the map. I remembered the paper I had seen him scribbling at, and which he had snatched from my sight, the day I paid out Rowly. Here, then, was the root of those bitter and mysterious words about
vowing
and
being spared nothing.

I was out of the room before I knew it, and opened his door without knocking. Ferris was still up, fully dressed; he started as I burst in.

'Yes?'

I waved the paper at him and he frowned. 'Well, what is it?' In my foolishness I had thought he would know the letter at once. I showed him the red glass in my other hand.

He winced. 'For shame, how can—'

'I have but now found it! I didn't look in the map! I lied, Ferris, I didn't look—'

He touched a finger to his lips and I realised I was shouting. There was anguish in his face; he was telling me something but the roar in my ears blocked it.

'It says, will you come to me,' I went on, throat very dry. 'So—' I threw the letter and the glass onto his bed, the sea swell pulling me off balance. He came closer and from his eyes I thought he was about to embrace me, but instead he went to the door and bolted it. As he turned back into the room, I caught him round the waist.

That was how I first went to him.

NINETEEN

Possession

I
woke in
my own bed, dazzled in my senses, invisible prints and tracks on my flesh. After such thirst, to have him lie on me and drip kisses into my mouth; later, to feel his sweat and trembling, and to remember all this now, with his scent still on me: delight, delight. Certain embraces, certain cries and pleadings in the dark coming to mind, I turned over and cooled my burning face in the bolster.

Aunt was to receive her answer today: Ferris had perhaps told her already; I was quite unable to give it thought. A star revolving in my own sphere, I was remote from earthly troubles. Everything courted me; the very sheets caressed me. I dressed slowly, waiting for my soul to seat itself back in my body.

As I was leaving his bed in the darkness, he had pulled me down to him, and whispered that we had so far only tasted our banquet. At that I almost got back in, but he laughed and said I must wait until the next night. Now I looked on the day ahead as an Eternity to be struggled through, full of business and meals and manners, before I could again enjoy him and he me.

The first person I saw on coming down was Becs, smiling at me as she put bread on the table. I smiled back and she asked, 'Have you slept well?'

I said, excellent well. At that moment Ferris came up from the lower stairs.

'Thought I heard you,' he said, nodding to Becs on her way out.

'Were you working on the press?' I asked him.

‘Mmm.'

'On a new pamphlet?'

'I'll show you.'

Throughout this babble I was trying to catch his eye. He was flushed, and kept glancing down. At last I said softly, 'Won't you look at me?' and received a full gaze that made me hot all over. Without thinking, I rose, but he shook his head.

'Not here.'

The bread which I found myself chewing had no taste in it. Ferris took nothing, but watched me eat. 'My aunt is at the market. I haven't spoken to her yet.'

'When will you?'

'Perhaps tonight. Or do you wish to tell her yourself?'

I threw down the bread. 'I'm not hungry. Let's see your pamphlet.' Getting down from table, I knocked the chair over backwards. We left the room without picking it up.

Once behind the printroom door, I pushed him against the wall and put my hands in his clothes. Becs was just along the way in the kitchen, and Aunt might return any minute. Almost as soon as he laid hand on me it was over, and he held out no longer than myself. Hearing his moan, like astonishment, I knew that embrace for the madness it was, and moved away, terrified by the risk we had just run.

We straightened our dress, regained our everyday selves; he spoke unsteadily of the work before us and I steeled my mind to printing. The new pamphlet was for the benefit of the second group of colonists, and set out some questions to be considered. There were also new copies of the previous one to be printed off, setting forth his basic principles, notably that of
no force
which I had so notoriously violated on an earlier occasion. It was fortunate that Ferris could not read my mind, for I smiled to recall the thrashing I had given Rowly. Let him come back now and try dividing myself and Ferris; I enjoyed privileges he would never—

'What's happened to your justification?' asked my friend mildly. I frowned at the case I was setting; the characters seemed crowding away from the left-hand side.

'Something's distracting you,' he said, and we burst together into crazy laughter. ‘Aren't you happy in your work, prentice?'

'A fool's question.'

Feeling strong enough to choke a bear, I worked away, setting three pages of type before I began to grow weary, and making sure that everything was justified. Ferris whistled, seeing how far I was got. He took up a case and searched it for errors, but could find none; I was triumphant. The smell of salt beef drifted into the room and I realised I was passionately hungry.

"They'll call us in a minute,' he said, taking off a print to dry.